It’s 3.30 am, the entire Gopalapuram locality in the heart of Chennai is still asleep. But 94-year-old K Shanmugasundaram aka ‘paper thatha’ is up and about to do his daily work.
He hops onto his bicycle, in just an hour, collects about 50 milk packets and delivers them door to door without missing a single day.
His morning ritual doesn’t end here; he moves on to his next task – delivering 60 sets of newspapers across eight streets in Gopalapuram.
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Rain or sun, Paper Thatha is there on his toes to serve his customers every morning. This has been his routine since the 2000s.
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“Even when I am running a fever, I don’t miss a day. It is only because I deliver newspapers in this neighbourhood that I got the chance to cross paths with former chief minister Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi and many other notable figures in the past,” shared Shanmugasundaram with The Hindu.
This is not the only job Shanmugasundaram does. After his paper and milk delivery, he heads straight to a wedding hall to take care of it.
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By afternoon, after all his duties are done, he quietly settles down to read that day’s entire newspaper work by word.
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If Shanmugasundaram can be this active and duty-bound at this age, what’s stopping us? Info Source: The Hindu