A girl with a drying apparatus

Deccan in Pune has its own clamour in the evenings. People selling fast fashion clothes at drop dead prices on the street. Pav Bhaji stalls sizzling butter. Throbbing sidewalks and trendy middle class out for a good time. Deccan also has many women meeting friends. I know it's not some big news. But still everytime I am there I think about what I see. Women meeting women friends. Elderly women. Decidedly middle aged women. Young women. In groups. Laughing. Buying. Eating. Talking. Again agreeing to meet. It's different. Trust me. It's something about that road. In this clamour, I sit in Wadeshwar with good friend, Sameer Athalye and he introduces me to a very intelligent young lady, Jui Kemkar. Jui was a working professional who suddenly decided that she needs to do some business. Not some small solopreneur kinds. A big kind. Something to do with agriculture. Supporting the farmers. Jui created a company called Desivdesi foods. She went around to check how some vegetables and fruits could be dried and eaten and could be tasty too. She also checked as to how some vegetables could be powdered and used as additives in food preparation. She found a niche market. Now she zeroed in upon some items that she could make. But she needed some farmers to grow these vegetables and fruits for her company. She went to her native village in Maharashtra. The farmers there refused. She was undeterred. She went all the way to Osmanabad. She met farmers there and they agreed. She put up a production unit. They started farming for her. Contract farming. She bought all their produce and converted to dried snacks. Beetroot. Beans. Spinach. So on. She also started doing her powders, notably onion, that's bought by a lot of downstream food companies. She was in business. The plucky young woman did not rest on her laurels. She went over to the Gulf and looked for avenues for her dried snack ensemble. She found good interest. And there she is, at the table in Wadeshwar. She tells me animatedly as to how she wants to run this business. She is direct, honest and completely willing to work hard for her business. She's still in her twenties. I am so proud of these young people we have in our country. The building blocks of a new nation. Completely unfazed. Very Global. Very focused. I know we let them down with all this religious, political and infrastructure sloth. But look at them, they are still building away. These are real startups. These, we need to encourage with all our abilities. And I ate the palak patta that she had dried with a spicy coating that one could have with chai or whisky in the evening just like that. It's good. It's different. But then, at one time, Maggi was too. (#storify brings another story that makes a lot of sense.)