India@70: The housewife who became a chef on the cloud

Back in 2007, one wasn’t accustomed to Indians being routinely told (by fellow Indians) to go to Pakistan at the slightest difference of opinion. The society was still agreeing to disagree. Clouds were what brought rain, not where you sent your files to hibernate.

Commerce

hadn’t gained an ‘e’, retail hadn’t lost its ‘r’ (Flipkart was launched in September 2007, Amazon arrived in 2012). Twitter was a toddler (the company was a year old, and Katy Perry hadn’t even joined!). Music meant effort, it was burned, rather than streamed. And Tinder was what you needed to light a fire (which you still do, but in a very different way).

Seems much more than 10 years ago, doesn’t it?

We bring you the stories born in the last decade, that didn't exist during India@60. This is the story of an individual who may not have been what they are today, if not for the changes that India has seen over the decade between 2007 and 2017.

The housewife who became a chef on the cloud

The door, to a third floor apartment in a housing society, bearing the plaque ‘Gul’s Kitchen’ is opened by a woman in her midthirties, in a hijab. “Namaste,
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home chef

Gul Ali hoon (I’m home chef Gul Ali),” she says. The idea had come from a friend — “why don’t you tie up with an aggregator?” Her inner circle, and her banker husband, had no doubt she would be a success. And they were right. Soon enough, she started getting orders, and the numbers kept inching up despite the food aggregator business itself not doing too well. “I can cook up to 150 meals in a day,” she says, and is happy to stay within than limitation, at least for now, to maintain quality. “I employ no assistants. I do the cooking and packaging myself.” She thinks quick and largescale adoption of technology in daily lives and a huge leap in the number of internet users has changed society in a positive way and given ‘career’ options to women like her. “If not for these changes, I would’ve been called a ‘bawarchi’ (cook), not a home chef. There are so many new career options that have come up, and it has really helped women. In a few years, these new avenues will probably leave the doctor and engineer behind,” she laughs.