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Looking for particular Pongal meals like Ven Pongal and Paruppu Vadai. Girija Venkatachalam runs ‘Girijapaati Meals’ to supply genuine home made podis, snacks, sweets, pickles, and savouries.
As Pongal approaches, Girija Venkatachalam’s house is stuffed with festive pleasure. The air is wealthy with the scent of ghee-fried cashews, raisins, and cardamom. Paati (Tamil for grandmother) and her ladies helpers are energetically making ready particular dishes for the pageant. Regardless of working onerous, fatigue doesn’t present on their faces; the house is vigorous with pleasure and laughter.
This 72-year-old runs ‘Girijapaati Meals’ the place she sells conventional home-style South Indian meals objects with “secret household recipes which might be over 100 years outdated!”
Beneath the model, she provides round 40 types of genuine home made podis, snacks, sweets, pickles, and savouries — together with garlic paruppu podi, bisibele bathtub, thengai podi, vepillai katti, black ulundhu laddu — and the record goes on.
To make the pageant extra joyous for city residents, she lately launched ready-to-cook Pongal must-haves like Chakkarai Pongal, Ven Pongal, and the crispy Paruppu Vadai.
“These days, many kids transfer out for research and jobs. Whereas they crave conventional meals, they lack time to prepare dinner it, so I made a decision to offer them with quick access to genuine home-style meals. Though it’s best in case you prepare dinner your meals at dwelling to dwell an extended wholesome life. However in case you lack time, then you definately come to me as a result of I’ll offer you what I eat and what my household eats,” she says.
Regardless of the big variety of orders the enterprise receives, Girija says she prepares all meals objects simply the way in which she cooks for her grandchildren.
Little doubt then that her telephone is continually ringing as demand for her South Indian delights is way and extensive. However right here’s one thing fascinating, this Chennai resident had not at all times been keen on cooking. Then how did she arrange a model that’s enslaving folks’s tastebuds?
In dialog with The Higher India, paati shares all about her entrepreneurial journey.
A kitchen mishap that led to a satisfying culinary journey
Born in Chennai, Girija was the eldest of seven siblings. Her household hailed from Kalpathi village, situated on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border.
“We lived in a giant joint household of 40 folks. My mom could be occupied within the kitchen. So, I used to be entrusted with the duties of taking good care of my siblings — from waking them up, taking them to highschool, and serving to them end their homework to feeding them and placing them to sleep,” she says.
Girija by no means entered the kitchen till 1968, which is when she bought married. Her husband’s household comprised 100 members, and the 18-year-old bride was requested to fry papadums for them. “I had by no means cooked earlier than. This was the primary time that I had stepped contained in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do however I used to be scared to inform it to my mother-in-law,” she remembers.
“Anyway, I poured oil into a big pan and stood like half a foot away from it. I threw a chunk of papadum into the overheated oil. It splattered over me. In consequence, my shirt bought caught to the pores and skin and I suffered extreme burns on my shoulder. For the following month, I couldn’t come out of my room as I couldn’t put on a shirt. So, that’s how my first day of cooking at my in-laws’ went,” she laughs.
However that day, Girija determined she should study to prepare dinner.
“My mother-in-law began instructing me the fundamentals and nuances of cooking. Finally, she taught me the normal household recipes. Every time I’d go to my mom, she would additionally share her culinary abilities with me. I used to be studying numerous recipes from each of my moms. In actual fact, my grandmothers additionally handed on their data to me,” she says.
That was how Girija’s culinary journey started. And in the present day, a grandmother herself, she makes use of her household’s secret recipes to feed 1000’s of people that crave home-style South Indian meals.
It’s by no means too late to run a enterprise!
Earlier than beginning the meals firm, Girija had been cooking conventional delights for her family and mates for over 5 a long time. She commercialised her merchandise when the demand for her merchandise grew exterior her prolonged household.
The concept to run an organization got here to her amid the COVID-19 pandemic when males from low-income backgrounds in her group began dropping their jobs. “Their wives would come to me for jobs as they misplaced their means to feed their households,” she says.
Lovingly referred to as paati (Tamil for grandmother), Girija began using these ladies in her kitchen. Alongside, because the demand for her merchandise grew, she formally launched her firm ‘Girija Paati’s’ in 2021.
Each festive season, the workforce caters to a minimum of 2,000 orders from throughout the nation from states like Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Gujarat.
In the meantime, Girija, even on the age of 72, continues to dedicate a minimum of 10 hours to cooking every single day. Her day begins with cooking meals for her staff, then experimenting with meals objects within the kitchen, supervising the employees, and winding up the day by checking the accounts.
“If it was not for this enterprise, I don’t know what I’d have been doing. About 10 years again, I misplaced my husband, and progressively, all my kids and grandchildren moved out one after the other. I had nothing a lot to do. As soon as, I had 100 members in my instant household, now I didn’t have sufficient folks to handle. Everyone bought busy. However now I’ve so many individuals to feed,” she smiles.
“I agree that I have to decelerate. I do know that in 10 years, I’ll not have this power stage. However I don’t want to take retirement until my final day,” says paati as she goes on to cater to her subsequent set of orders for Pongal.
If you wish to strive Girija Paati’s South Indian delights, you’ll be able to order right here.
Edited by Pranita Bhat. All photographs: Girija Paati.
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