The invisible lives of Chennai's leather shoemakers

CHENNAI: Tucked behind the Vyasarpadi Jiva railway station in Perambur’s Mettupalayam is a small tunnel that leads to the Uppandi Babu Lane, with people bustling about their day. This small locality houses the Arunthathiyar community, dealing with leatherwork. The community here migrated from the Telugu-speaking states, but now considers Chennai their native.

Once home to hundreds of people making and trading footwear, what remains now is only a few men who pursue this line of work.

As you enter the locality, asking anyone for ‘people who make shoes’ would lead you to this small lane of four shops, out of which one is of Kuppusamy (60), who has been working with leather since he was 10.

Bad times

“We were a community of more than 250 families, who made shoes of all kinds for this city,” begins Kuppusamy. “Now, everyone has moved on to do different jobs like drivers and watchmen in different places. We do not have the support to continue the business of making footwear.”

Making leather footwear is an extensive process involving multiple components. With time, the prices of the raw materials have risen while the profits have subsequently fallen. Retailers refused to pay a higher cost for the footwear despite it being made with labour-intensive methods.

“A lot of the companies we supplied footwear to shut down over the years. Everyone ran out of business, and we ran out of work,” rues Kuppusamy.

His regular day begins at 9 am in his small shop, and he works till the sun sets. Kuppusamy customises shoes for his clients based on their requirements. He also specialises in making shoes for those with specific health needs.

“This is a shoe for someone who had to have their front part of the feet removed due to diabetes,” he says as he shows us a shoe that only has the heel of one’s leg. He also shows us the outline of the feet he has drawn in his notebook of ‘designs’. Kuppusamy, in a way, makes shoes that fit you like a glove.

Earning Rs 500/day

His fingers have lost the melanin as he has to continuously work with glue, stripping the skin of its colour. “The soles of the shoes have to be glued together, and they can be glued with a brush. But a brush would not trace the entirety of the surface my fingers can,” Kuppusamy explains why he continues to use his fingers to glue the footwear.

Kuppusamy is one of the few people who can still sustain their families through making or repairing shoes. “I can make around Rs 500 a day if I begin in the morning. Even on a dull day, there would be at least 2-3 customers,” he adds.

His son works in a private firm, thus making him not the sole breadwinner of the family. For many families, sustaining themselves only on shoe-making was impossible, pushing them to take different jobs. Their attempts to mobilise have also failed as their co-operative societies did not bear fruit.

While Kuppusamy works with leather, some have also shifted to synthetic.

A slow fall

Three lanes away from Kuppusamy’s shop is a small house where five men now make shoes not with leather but with synthetic material.

Kesavaraman, alias Mudraiyan, migrated to this locality in 1974. While originally not from the community, he learnt the craft of making footwear. Slowly, he developed a warehouse with 20 people working for him. They made leather shoes and other forms of footwear.

Now the number has dropped to five, with sales going down and increasing investment capital. The downfall has been gradual, but the past decade has seen a stark difference.

“This is all synthetic. Leather is expensive, and we cannot keep making them anymore,” he says, looking at his eldest son who manages the business. “The retailers don’t pay you, so we switched to synthetic. Plus, leather is also labour-intensive and takes time, but synthetic is cost-effective and takes less time to be made.”

The men make 50 pairs of shoes a day after working for 12 hours – the minimum number required for Kesavaraman to sustain his business and pay those working for him.

The monsoon is the toughest season, as constant power cuts and no sunlight dampen the process of making footwear. “We need sunlight to glue the shoes together, which is impossible in the rain. We do other tasks like making straps during the rains. Also, we need a lot of light to work with, and there is no light during monsoons.”

However, even with no rain as well, the business has not seen momentum in the past few years for Kesavaraman. “It is a normal season all year, there is no ‘better’ season. We used to see a rise in sales during festivals when we worked with leather, but not much now,” he avers.

Invisible lives

While the Union and the state governments boast of their schemes for MSMEs, they remain inaccessible to people like Kuppusamy. Borrowing money from the bank remains a blocked option.

“We tried to avail loans under the Union government schemes that promise loans for small businesses. But these people hung us over delicate details and rejected our applications,” he laments.

Kesavaraman concurs and adds: “We run this entirely self-financed or through non-formal money lenders. Loans would help us build more, but that’s out of reach,” says Kesavaraman. Neither has any welfare scheme benefitting the community, as they have been made invisible by the State.

Kesavaraman and his men only make simple footwear that follows a specific template. Intricate detailing and different designs are only possible with leather. Kuppusamy, however, still works with leather.

Sharing an anecdote from his heydays, Kuppusamy shares, “I made sandals with heels for Amma (former CM and late J Jayalalithaa). This was the time when her foster son was getting married. I made 150 pairs of shoes. These were embedded with heels and were of colours that matched those of her sarees.”

Each pair of shoes that Kuppusamy made then earned him Rs 150, while they were probably sold in the market for at least three times more. Kuppusamy is referring to the wedding of Jayalalithaa’s foster son and Sasikala’s nephew in 1995.

Multiple stories now remain untold in the lanes of Mettupalayam, while the place still comes to be known as where leather shoes are made. Their legacy continues to live through chatter and gossip. As Kuppusamy asserts, “This is Arunthathiyar Nagar, our nagar. Mettupalayam, Chennai – 12.”