CHAMPIONS OF PETTAH - THE STORY THAT IS THE NATTAMI (NATTAMI KATHAVA)
The Champions of Pettah" is a new series of episodes that depicts real life heroes that work against the odds at the most vividly beautiful place in Colombo. Inspired by the works of the amazing @kenhermann, The Nattami Kathava (the story that is the Nattami) is an in-depth documentary on some of the most hard working people in the area. These Guys sometimes carry over 150-200KG on their small carts and pushes it amongst the honking buses and ragging tuks to their desired point of delivery.
Here's the first look of The Nattami Kathava (The Story that is the Nattami) is the first project of the series "Champions of Pettah", a six episode documentary on different groups of people in Pettah, Sri-Lanka's busiest market.
Meet Mr. Mohammed Anaaz, a veteran Nattami of Pettah. He was the first Nattami that caught my eye that Saturday morning as he was peacefully sitting in a corner with his friend chit chatting about how warm the weather is when I approached him to tell his story. Rizwan has been in the profession for 20 years as he went down the memory lane he explained to us further about the hardships of the job. "I start work around 7AM every single day whether it's a sunny morning or a rainy day we have to get up early and report to our usual spot and wait for a shop to call us saying it's time to deliver some goods, I deliver polythene around Pettah and I get paid around 20 rupees per roll of polythene. The job is gruesome, I have to pay 80 rupees to the person that rents the carts, since I've been around for so long it's a cheaper price compared to these new boys, they have to pay around 150 rupees a day! Back in the days (around 10 years ago) we used to get paid well. I remember I used to take home around 5000 rupees everyday but now the times have changed and I barely make 1000 rupees, my children are still in school and with every single rupee that I earn I make sure they can lead a better life and not get associated with the wrong crowd especially here in Pettah, just as much as it's vivid here it can be hostile." Says Anaaz.
This is by far one of my personal favorites out of the 110 plus pictures that we clicked that day. This was captured somewhere near the Gaspaha Handiya, this Nattami was pushing over 200KGs of Garlic from the Manning Market to a wholesale shop located around Gaspaha. All I could think was where he finds the energy to push so much of weight in the hot sun, cause at that time we were well in on the project and have been walking around Pettah for over four hours and I could literally feel my feet burn as I was dripping in sweat at that time in complete dismay with the heat that we were blessed with that day.
This cart carries 130 kilos, This cart earns 1000rs, This cart feeds 4 children, This cart is my solitude, This cart is my home, This cart is the cart of dreams.
Mr. Bernard, a real fitness freak is the first impression I had when I crossed the street right after talking to Mr. Anaz (refer the previous post on the story of Mr. Anaz). Bernard was sitting on top of his cart smoking the last bit of his cigarette when I approached him. As soon as he finished smoking I started the conversation and asked him if he was willing to tell his story and he was more than happy to oblige for my very random offer. As he started talking I gave him one of my own cigarettes as a show of gratitude toward Mr. Bernard "I am currently waiting for my call, I just got to work and I'm wondering if it would rain like it did yesterday. I am the third generation of Nattamis from my family, my dad and my granddad were all Nattamis. It's all I knew when I was growing up, there wasn't a lot of things I had to dream about. My fate was set on pushing this cart and life has been extremely hard ever since. I have 4 beautiful children and all of them are still in school, to support them I push this cart with goods that weigh around 130KG per trip and I get paid around 120 rupees per trip and I try to get myself on to a lot of trips during the day, I guess that's, where the huge arms comes from (, says with a macho laugh). Well, I guess that's my story, and all I hope is my children go to university and I can close my eyes in peace." Mr. Bernard then finished his cigarette and told me that he's done for the day and he is going back home to Makkakuliya by bus and getting some sleep before he goes out with his mates to play some volleyball in the area.
This Nattami climbs two fleet of stairs to a room filled with various different spices and carries the heavy baggages back down to his cart and straps it for protection and would go back up again to carry more goods to his cart. I was standing inside the wholesale shop (right side of the picture) and got the opportunity to speak to the mudalali (shopkeeper) about the process. He told me that they get paid according to how heavy the goods are and he cannot really name a price as various people carries different weights on their carts. I asked him if it was okay for us to go to the room full of spices to get some more footage and he told me while laughing to not even think about going inside as the essence of the spices are too strong for us to handle and with this heat it would make it even worse.
The Smiling Nattami
Mr. Selvaraj, the smiling Nattami is a real hero. He has been pulling carts around Pettah for the past 25 years and he says that he has literally seen so many changes to the ecosystem here in Pettah, how it got busier and busier over the past two and a half decades. Mr. Selvaraj is nearing retirement and he hopes he can park his cart forever in four years when the pro-folic Manning market of Pettah will be relocated to the outskirts of the city for a cleaner and an efficient future.
As you can see this Nattami is a real poser, all we had to ask was if it was okay to take a few pictures of him and he started posing as if he was a seasoned model. As we were clicking the images his friends (which I assume) started cracking jokes at him to a point where he got so annoyed that he got up said something back to them and just started walking away.
The Millionaire Nattami
First question I asked M.G.R was why he is called M.G.R, to most of you that don't know M.G.R was a Srilankan born Indian actor that hailed from Kandy that starred in Tamil blockbusters back in the day. He said that his parents had a shrine for him next to the gods and prayed to him on a daily basis. Curious as to why, he asked his mom why they prayed to him. His mom had then sat him down and told him that this is your mamma (translated to English, your uncle) and he is the uncle of the world. He then had asked his mom several times that he wants to see him and finally his parents had taken him to the neighborhood cinema to watch one of his movies. While showing a cover of that movie he explained that when he watched it he cried and from that day onward he started living like him making him his idol and the person he looked up to. He even dresses like M.G.R himself and said that for this Avurudu season he tailor made two suits that costed him LKR 28,000/=. He further stated that his idol lead a good life and was kind to people and he himself is kind and gives whatever he has to the poor. He said that the name "Millionaire Nattami" was a name that a tv channel called him and he is not a person that is rich at all. I was truly humbled by his attitude and how he looked at life and made me realize that this bunch of people that we ignore everyday have much more kindness in them than most of the people that I personally know. Colombo is a small city but the different people that inhabits the commercial capital just made me wonder as to how many more interesting stories are out there for people to know and to read and one thing that M.G.R taught me was to be kind to one another and being humble will take you a long way. Kudos to the kotipathi (Millionaire) Nattami and may M.G.R himself blessed him with all the love and kindness that he himself spread to the people.
Concluding the "Nattami Kathava" which is the first mini project from the series "Champions of Pettah". This in-depth documentary covered four stories through photo and film and will continue to depict these stories on a more heartfelt approach with the hopes of changing the ways we see these people.
