Jariya Azeez and a team of youngsters are documenting families making traditional flavoured jaggery in Kayalpattinam in Thoothukudi district
When the dust of the day settles and people wait out the afternoon sun indoors, the ‘puttu kaara paati’ arrives. She walks from one street to another in the seaside village of Kayalpattinam in Thoothukudi, a basket balanced on her head, singing-announcing fresh puttu. The old woman — her name is Samudrakani — was a fixture in Jariya Azeez’s childhood. “She’s unable to walk long distances now, so doesn’t sell puttu any more,” says Jariya over phone.
Twenty-eight-year-old Jariya, who was raised in Chennai, is from Kayalpattinam. She runs Abati, a store that focusses on sustainable and handmade products, from her ancestral home in the town. During the course of curating products for her venture, she came across palm-based…