The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Innate skill in matchstick making

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 13, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Innate skill in matchstick making

Ramya Kannan

Children employed in a match unit near Gudiyatham, 150 km from Chennai. — Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: Growing up with the smell of phosphorous and the feel of matchsticks underfoot gives children the impression that stacking matches on a frame and packing them in a box is the most natural thing to do.

Matches are truly a household name in the thatched huts of Vellore district and matchstick making, a household trade. Every child in the villages, especially Gudiyatham and Pernambut, can stack matches faster than they can light them.

While a good number of children go to the private match factory in Gudiyatham town, matchstick making becomes a habit only because of its pervasiveness at home. The large factories sub-contract work to locals, who work from home.

Grossly underpaid

The job is grossly underpaid, with a stack of six frames being sold for less than Rs. 2. The sub-contractor, who hires the children, can make up to Rs. 150 per day, but with the cost of labour, however cheap, infrastructure, however minimal, and materials, it hardly amounts to any substantial sum at the end of the month.

In a dark makeshift shelter at Kalarpalayam, close to Gudiyatham, children are enthusiastically involved in making matches. They chatter, giggle and laugh among themselves as they go about their task, competing with each other. And when they cry or fight, like Shakthi, a four-year old, does, it is because they have run out of matches or are slower than the other kids.

Close by, at Erthangal, where a temple festival has toned down hectic activity as the villagers relax, 10-year-old Poornima sits in the shade of the local ration shop, racing her fingers across the galley.

`Magical' touch

As she runs her hand along the frame, the matches fall in place magically and she is on to the next frame. Without pausing in her task, she says: "It is a holiday, so I'm doing this. I go to school too."

Thenmozhi, sitting with her, is much younger and consequently slower. Their mother, sitting alongside, hastens to assure, "A few more years and she'll be good. Really good!"

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