Door delivery across Chennai: routes, timings and areas
Which days our van goes where, from Saligramam to Tambaram and Anna Nagar, and how to get your order before the rush.
Inside our kids’ pack: how we sort 21 items by age
A look at packing week in Saligramam, and why every little ones’ pack is checked by two people before it is sealed.
Our little ones’ pack, 21 items for children aged 5 to 10, is the most popular thing we sell. It looks simple: a printed carton with sparklers, small flower pots and a few fancy items. Behind it is a week of careful sorting in the back room of our shop.
In mid-September, the cartons arrive from the green cracker makers we buy from, and every box is checked for the maker’s name, batch and formulation on the label. Anything with a dented, damp or torn box goes back. Then the sorting begins. Each kids’ pack gets 10 boxes of 7 cm sparklers, 4 small flower pots, 3 twinkling stars, 2 colour smoke tubes and 2 ground chakkars, which we keep separate for an adult to light.
We leave out everything that makes a loud bang and anything that flies. No rockets, no bijili, no aerials. Parents sometimes ask us to add a small sound cracker, and we suggest buying it separately so the children’s carton stays as it is.
Two people pack every carton. Our mother, Saraswathi, fills it from a printed list, and Karthik checks it against the same list before the lid is taped. Each carton gets a small card listing the items, the age range and a few lighting notes in Tamil and English. In a busy season we pack around 900 kids’ packs, and the counting is the part nobody is allowed to rush.
