Street food is an important and inseparable part of India’s culinary landscape. The food served at these little kiosks has the power to uplift our moods like none other! And to cherish and celebrate the rich street food culture of India, Curly Tales has launched an initiative called ‘Astitva’. As part of this initiative, we will give food stalls across India a makeover to ensure the customers have a great experience while relishing their food there. Scroll on to see what our first transformation looked like!
Curly Tales Turn A Humble Thela In Delhi Into A Brand-New Food Cart
Astitva is a little initiative by Curly Tales to uplift local street vendors in India by giving them a complete makeover. And we began this journey with Satish Amritsari Naan in Delhi. A beloved street food vendor in the Capital city, Satish Kumar hails from Jharkhand and whips up some of the yummiest chole and Amritsari naan in Delhi.
Seeing his mother struggle to educate him and his younger brother after his father’s demise, Satish decided to come to Delhi at the young age of 18 to help improve his family’s financial situation. He worked at different restaurants and sent all his earnings back home to ensure the best education for his younger brother.
His family now also includes his wife and two daughters as well. To ensure the best for all of them, Satish stays and works all day long, almost 1,100 km away from home, in Delhi! He does miss home but the struggle to make ends meet has made it impossible for him to visit home often.
After working at several eateries in Delhi and understanding the business, Satish took a loan of ₹1 lakh. With this, he started his own little food cart a few years back. In 2022, his mother was diagnosed with cancer and he was forced to shut the cart for almost 3 months! His landlord sold all his things in lieu of rent and when Satish finally came back to Delhi, he had to start his cart all over again!
Unfortunately, Satish’s mother lost her battle with cancer and passed away. Despite this, the strong-willed man came back to the city and continued to work hard to earn for his family!
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Astitva, An Initiative To Preserve The Rich Street Food Culture Of India
Seeing his difficulties and the never-say-die attitude, Curly Tales decided to bring a little smile to Satish’s face. To achieve that, we gave his cart a makeover as part of our Astitva initiative! We transformed his setup to provide a more polished and efficient experience for customers. For this, we gave it a facelift and added nice and colourful details to it. Besides that, we also made uniforms for the people working there, added new utensils and dustbins to ensure hygiene, and placed some tables and umbrellas so people could eat comfortably at Satish Amritsari Naan.
The big smiles on Satish and his crew’s faces were more than enough to let us know that we had achieved what we set out to do! For a happy and prosperous beginning with the new cart, we also performed a Ganesh puja there.
Astitva is a small step by Curly Tales to cherish and support small businesses in India. With this, we wish to preserve the rich street food culture of India. We hope we’re able to bring more smiles to the faces of these people and make their lives a little easier.
Where: Outside Garden Galleria, Sector 27, Gurgaon
Cover Image Courtesy: Internal
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