Kamalathaal Paati is very famous for her idlis. Hailing from Coimbatore, Kamlathaal started her business in the field of cooking 30 years ago. Her idlis were priced at 50 paise each and she changed the pricing only 15 years ago to Re. 1.
Kamalathaal is 82-years-old and she has been serving the needy and the daily wage workers who are unable to afford more than Rs.5 on breakfast. Kamalathaal along with her grand daughter-in-law Aarthi runs the Idli eatery.
Kamlathaal wakes up at 5:00 a.m. every day and makes the idli batter in a traditional way by using the grinding stone. She starts making the idlis at 6:00 in the morning. Customers start lining up her store starting from 7:00 a.m. She keeps the shop open until all the batter is used. Kamlathaal sells from 600 to 800 idlis in a day.
She used the traditional firewood cooking to steam her idlis until news about her flooded on the front pages of the newspapers. Later, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited from Coimbatore supplied her a gas stove with a free LPG connection.
Kamalathaal sticks to sell her idlis only at Re.1 and not increase the amount at any cost as she wants to feed numerous people who do not have that much to spend on. In the time where everything works only on money, Kamlathaal’s gesture on feeding hundreds of people with her idli increases our faith in humanity.
