Late bloomers

Well, if you get to this place at around 8 am, this is what you can expect - a general feeling of boredom, with the shopkeepers not too keen to talk to you. That's because most of their work has been done long before you arrived.

The Kamaraj Flower Market is one of the three specialized wholesale markets at Koyambedu, at the city's western border. The pookadai and the Kotwal Chavadi at George Town were relocated to the bigger, better market complex here sometime in 1996, implementing a recommendation from Madras' first master plan of 1975. Of the four blocks at Koyambedu, covering nearly 60 acres, two are for the vegetable market and the balance is shared equally between the fruit and the flower markets. Assuming an even split of visitors, the flower market gets to hose about 25,000 people, most of them traders looking to strike long-term deals on flower offtakes. The bulk of the traffic in this market gets in between 3 am and 6 am, so it is no wonder that these lads are ignoring you!