Kalwa-based Jewish-backed women's group is feeding thousands of poor kids

Its 8 am Shivaji Nagar a neighbourhood 10 minutes away from Kalwa East railway station is stirring awake to the sound of devotional music playing on a loudspeaker Among a row of shuttered shops a 10x15 feet kitchen witnesses a flurry of activity Five women wearing polka dot aprons and scrub caps are preparing 25 kilos of dal khichdi The simple hearty dish will feed 100 underprivileged children who study in class 1 to 4 of Joshua Greenberger Learning Centre a school run by nonprofit Gabriel Project Mumbai GPMRagini Godbole Indu Mane and Sangita Raut at GPMs Kalwa kitchenThe women work in rehearsed sync Theyve known each other for eight years first working together at Mahila Bachat Gat Womens Economic Cooperative supported by a local nonprofit REAP Reach Education Action Programme and then at Delicio Food Company a catering service they set up five years ago Its through this that they partnered with GPMWhile Ragini Godbole and Subhadra Khose chop the onions and tomatoes into a fine heap Sangita Raut heats the oil Kalpana Gawde tempers it with jeera rai and tej patta On the side she washes used vessels and cleans the floor between intervals Raut suddenly cracks a joke about a neighbour and they cant help but laughThis kitchen is their haven They come here to cook but also to indulge in lighthearted gossip They are each others support says Hayley Dsouza volunteer coordinator and educational administrator at GPMThe team preps to cook 25 kg of dal khichdi Picsa Satej ShindeHailing from various parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka the women made this suburb on the fringes of Mumbai with an estimated population of 200000 their home close to 30 years ago Most of them live in one roomkitchen tenements in neighbouring chawls When I moved here the area didnt have pucca roads I had to walk 30 minutes to find the nearest kirana store There was only one tap for the entire neighbourhood and open gutters were everywhere Things have improved says Indu Mane as she cleans the rice before handing the plate to Raut who empties it in the pot now simmering with onion tomato and peas flavoured with gingergarlic paste and garam masala All the spices that go into the recipe are made inhouse leaving the kitchen fragrantIts only natural then that writer and anthropologist Elana Sztokman decided to name the womens collective Masala Mamas The moniker has even made it to the title of a cookbook that releases this December and will be available in print and ebook formatWhats in the bookWith the famous festive phrase Til gul ghyaa goadgoad bola as its epigraph Masala Mamas Recipes and Stories from Indian Women Changing their Communities through Food and Love contains 100 vegetarian recipes mostly Maharashtrian in origin shared by 16 women from the collective It also includes essays that offer the reader a glimpse into their traditions and everyday lives For instance Khose admits that she couldnt cook So when her kids would ask her to make sweets she gave them poha insteadStudents at Joshua Greenberger Learning Centre in Bhaskar Nagar 15 minutes away from the kitchen relish the dal khichdi lunchTheyve also spoken about the experience of being a woman in India the time they got married when they stopped going to school the expectations they have to live up to and how their daughters are a little more independent than they were The cookbook is a vehicle to share their stories work and community recipes with the world It also helps preserve their knowledge which stands the chance of getting lost in urban migrtion For instance things like how to use turmeric for facial care or coconut oil for hair says Sztokman 47 in an email interview from Israel where she lives with her husband Jacob a tech executive turned social entrepreneur who founded GPM in 2012The journey so farThe Jewish volunteerbased initiative was launched to provide hunger relief literacy support and empowerment to kids living in the citys slums Over 150 volunteers from the USA Europe Australia Israel and Asia have offered their services in the past five yearsKenneth Dsouza of GPM says the plan is to set up a restaurant in Thane or KalwaHeadquartered in Kalwa GPM runs a variety of initiatives including a drinking water project and a health and learning centre thats part of its Love2Learn school network Local youth mainly students pursuing a masters degree teach the underprivileged kids roughly 25 per class from class 1 to 10 The medium of instruction is Hindi We picked Kalwa after a recommendation by members of REAP who were working in the area says Elana The teams first project was called Eat to Learn It ensured that if the kids showed up to learn they would be served a hot nutritious mealWhile the approach worked finding a food supplier was challenging Thats how Khose and her colleagues came into the picture Its a winwin model The children fulfil their nutrition and education requirements and the women have a chance at economic empowerment adds ElanaRecipe collectorsSpending roughly half a day in the kitchen daily the women cook six dishes through the week poha chana usal veg pulao sheera soyabean khichdi and dal khichdi Each student enjoys a 250gm meal all quantities are measured on a digital weighing scale to avoid wastage We picked these dishes because most kids living here are migrants from the north So South Indian dishes like idli and medu wada might not agree with their taste says ManeOnce the meal is prepared it is packed in five steel containers and delivered to the centre Until a couple of years ago we would carry the hot dabbas on our heads sometimes wading through kneedeep water in the rains Now we have an autorickshaw for the job shares RautBesides the daily meal women also make batches of Hyderabad Mix a grain mix developed at the National Institute of Nutrition NIN and given as a supplementary formula to malnourished kids which is supplied to various clinics in KalwaElana Sztokman and husband JacobHowever its not just school kids they feed Under Delicio the team receives 30 catering orders through the year These could be for birthdays weddings or Ganeshotsav From upma and puri bhaji to bharli vangi besan dhirde alu wadi and gulab jamun the selftaught cooks rustle up a bunch of recipes all now recorded in the book Most of these are traditional recipes passed down generations Indu and I also learnt some dishes from our husbands who work at the BPT canteen For instance the Maharashtrianstyle patal bhaji Sometimes my daughter looks up a recipe online on her mobile phone and asks me to make it We enjoy learning new dishes shares RautTheyve learnt recipes from each other too like the mas wadi a snack that Khose grew up eating Its exactly like bhakarwadi but we had never heard of it exclaims ManeDuring Elanas last visit to Mumbai in March this year the team travelled to Alibaug to spend a day at celebrity chef Moshe Sheks culinary studio A World Away Mane reminisces It was beautiful Many of us hadnt travelled by boat before He taught us how to make chhole bhatureShek who is a GPM trustee adds It was a day out for them Since they were working on the book my only advice was that they should weigh the exact quantity of each ingredient required instead of using approximations which they are used to cooking withBack home in Israel Elana has hosted recipe trials with professionals from the hospitality industry to ensure every recipe in the book works I loved biryani and many of the vegetable masalas and curries Now my kids love to eat besan dhirde for breakfast and I also cook a variety of pakoras and bhajiyas Once youve cooked with Indian spices you cant go back to Western cooking My kitchen smells different like IndiaEarn and empowerThe profits from the book sales will go towards supporting the womens kitchen Through the partnership with GPM they currently earn Rs 16000 per month as a group and are share holders in Delicio Food Company Kenneth Dsouza director India GPM who trained the women to run a professional kitchen says It gives them a sense of ownership stokes their entrepreneurial spirit and empowers them financially In many families they are the sole breadwinners In three years weve seen a turnover of R40 lakh By next year we plan to launch a food stall near Kalwa railway station and a restaurant in Kalwa or Thane where they can offer wholesome community cuisineAnd research for it has already begun After wrapping up the days chores Mane and Raut visit Thanes Viviana Mall to observe how kiosks are run at the food court Raut sums up their labour of love Amhala biddingvidding nahin jamat fakt jevan banavna aavadto Were not interested in offering saree fallbidding services we like to only cook