It is not clear exactly whose fame rubbed off on whom.
A few weeks ago, the Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra shared a video on X of a 22-year-old woman driving a Thar―a popular off-roader from his company―which was towing a food cart on the streets of Delhi. She bought the vehicle with the money she made from the street food business.
In the post that quickly went viral, Mahindra asks, “What are off-road vehicles meant to do? Help people go places they haven’t been able to before. Help people explore the impossible.”
A woman running a panipuri stall may sound near impossible to those who are aware of the national capital’s law and order record and reputation when it comes to women. But then Tapsi Upadhyay believes in going places where she, or women in general, have never been to before.
Like running a panipuri stall on the bustling streets of Delhi late into the night. Or rather, nearly 50 of them across the country―almost all of them run by young women.
It is hard to determine if Upadhyay’s self-branded ‘B.Tech Paani Puri Wali’ food carts―now present in 46 locations from Hyderabad to Haryana and Ahmedabad to Delhi―is more of an epitome of the entrepreneurial streak among India’s startup generation, or a feel-good story of a young Indian woman breaking shackles to achieve her potential against all odds. Perhaps it is both.
But if you ask the woman at the centre of all the virality of the moment, the answer may surprise you. Customers hungering for her succulent panipuris are also peppered with eager youngsters on their way home from college wanting to meet her. “Ma’am, may I take a selfie with you?” teenybopper Kanishk Gupta, the obligatory backpack and smartphone accessories duly in place, asks Upadhyay, who happily obliges. “I saw your video,” he gushes. “It is quite motivational.”
Upadhyay’s motivation is something quite different. Between the six carts she runs directly through her registered business and the other 40 panipuri carts she has as franchises across the country, her business may be thriving, but the aim was always something else.
Riding high: A woman-run cart in Tilak Nagar, New Delhi | Kritajna Naik
“Right from when I was a kid, I used to look around and see so many problems in our society,” says Upadhyay. “And I thought, why can’t I be the one who can solve them?”
Only, she was not sure how. From a typical middle class family in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh with a homemaker mother and a father who worked with a local channel, Upadhyay threw herself into studies, as dutiful daughters in small-town India are expected to. She moved to Delhi on a two-pronged academic spree―joining engineering (the background from which the ‘B. Tech’ in her branding comes from) as well as finishing the preparatory syllabi for the UPSC Civil Services exam.
Ironically, studying was what put her off studies. As such, she says she joined engineering only because of pressure from her parents. It did get her out of the confines of her hometown and into the hustle and bustle of Delhi, while the civil services prep led to an epiphany.
Almost all of Upadhyay’s (with her Royal Enfield Bullet) food carts across India are run by women.
“During that period, it just dawned on me,” recalls Upadhyay. “Do I really need to become an IAS officer to bring about a change in society? So many lakhs of aspirants learn so much preparing for the civils, but very few make it. What do the rest do with all that acquired knowledge? Most take up some private job, never really using their knowledge to serve the society.”
This made Upadhyay look around for another way. Politics would have been obvious, with the power that you can utilise for a change in the society, but as she says, “I don’t belong to that place.” It took her some time before hitting upon the street food idea.
“I decided I would pick up one of the problems in our society, and connect other issues to that so I can keep on working and solving other issues as well,” says Upadhyay. She may sound grandiose, but these are words of a young Indian who has walked the talk. Her logic is simple―food is something everybody needs, the core of every industry. A majority of Indians go for affordable food from the streets. But healthy, tasty, nutritious and affordable food was still a chimera for millions of them.
Upadhyay did her research before starting with panipuri. “It is Indian, our very own snack. And every corner of the country and every section of our society can emotionally relate to it,” she says. Or, even the very name, considering that West Delhi, where she started off from, prefers calling it golgappa, not panipuri. “It is known by various names in different parts of the country,” she explains. “Puchka in some places, batashe, golgappe in other places. But panipuri is the name by which it is known across the country.”
What’s in a name, when the objective is loftier. “It is not just a business, I set out to offer a completely healthier version of the snack,” says Upadhyay. “My team and I are on a mission―we call it Mission Healthy Bharat.”
So, the puri is made using whole wheat and is air-fried, while the water used is reverse osmosis filtered. Only plant-based milk substitutes are used for the dahi and fresh green chillies in the masala, while utmost standards of hygiene―gloves, sanitisers―are complied with. And, no plastic waste.
“We are doing Indian local food only, but in a way which is entirely healthier―quality food prepared and served with hygiene,” says Upadhyay. “Plant-based vegan food, we are not serving any dairy or cruelty food.” Recently, Upadhyay expanded her portfolio to include south Indian food, including healthier variants like millet dosa and ragi idli.
Of course, she did not inform her parents back home about this entrepreneurial venture; they thought their daughter was studying engineering and preparing for IAS entrance in Delhi. They came to know only once the business picked momentum and she became a sensation on social media.
Business is indeed thriving, with plans to set up shop outlets soon. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows one cart making an average 01 lakh a month, with a neat profit of around Rs30,000.
But it was not always so. There were initial hiccups, including reluctance over girls manning (remember there is no word as ‘womanning’) a street food cart to shopkeepers protesting against a food cart on the footpath outside their outlets. Upadhyay, an ardent follower of Lord Krishna, took all this in her stride. For example, in Bihar, she couldn’t find girls to ‘man’ the food carts, and considering the security scenario, an exception was made for men to run the panipuri wali cart in Sitamarhi.
“I never worried about such issues, because for me, my objective was more important―to make India from being the diabetic capital of the world to the health capital of the world,” says Upadhyay. “It is way more important than becoming an IAS officer!”
While selling affordable, nutritious street food in more and more cities and spots seems to be the business model (Upadhyay already sounds like an MBA smart aleck when strategies like ‘price, product, promotion and place’ roll off her tongue), she is also planning an easy-to-use app that will help Indian housewives make healthier version of our staple dishes.
What next? Politics? Social service? Or, another business idea? Upadhyay is quick to respond, “Politics maybe, after a few years, but I am already into social service (with what I am doing right now), and I will continue doing my social service.”
Perhaps Upadhyay’s biggest contribution could be her impact, through social media and in the physical world, on young girls. “I have encountered many girls who are inspired to come out of their homes and get jobs or start their own business,” she says. “What is wrong if a girl stands on a street and serves people? They are earning their livelihood, saving for studies or helping their families.”