THE ENTERPRENUERS OF OUR NUKKADS!!

You will have definitely heard about these women! I have also seen them at almost every corner of the lanes of Mumbai and Navi Mumbai in the evenings. Yes, I have seen these women selling vadapav with the helpers in tow. Basically coming from lower middleclass families, these women are out for this business to make both ends meet.

Adversity may sometimes become a chance call on diversity. We all know, when the earnings of our families are not enough, women of the house take an extra effort to increase the earnings in still many more ways by doing multiple errands. These lower middleclass families are no exception, who mostly have hand -to -mouth existence. The situation becomes more grim when the earning member or the head of such families loses his job or any such untoward incident only adds fuel to the problems. These adversities may well bring these women of the house to work for an additional or regular source of income.

The business of selling vadapav has turned into a blessing for them, considering the fact that not only these vadas satiate the taste buds and hunger, but also are affordable to all, be a student or a officegoer. We often spot these women who take charge of this business of selling vadapav at the nukkads of our lanes in the evenings.

We Mumbaikars, love everything about Mumbai. From street food, to small eateries, to Udipi restaurants, to Irani cafes, to the plush five course restaurants, Mumbai has everything. You ask any diehard fan of Mumbai about his favourite street food famously known as 'CHAT', 'VADA PAV' will top the list. I haven't met anyone who has stayed in Mumbai and haven't tasted it. These women have smartly explored our taste and they serve us with those affectionately prepared yummy vadas with mouthwatering green and red chatnis.

This is not to give the impression that these ladies do not consider other options of work during the day. I have a met few who at times work as maids and as I have mentioned earlier in this post some of them do the various stuff like stitching falls to the sarees during the day. But, all the same, evenings are meant for this business.

Kudos to these small enterpreneurs! who sell these vadas at the prime location, like railway stations, near office hub, near colleges, and our nukkads. It is not uncommon to see a Mumbaikar, after a hard day, taking a halt to grab a bite of this vadapav before heading towards his long tiring return journey to his home.

This might be a very limited snapshot, but, when I see these ladies, I see strength of character, smartness and a seamless bond between the literate women enterpreneurs and these women selling the delicious vadapav at every nook and corner of our gullies.