Ever imagined yourself sitting down all day long to peel loads of garlic in preparation of making ginger-garlic paste? Buying ginger garlic paste is an easier option, but if you are a sucker for all things fresh and unadulterated, then you’d probably make your own fresh ginger-garlic paste. Store-bought paste can never match the taste and aroma of the dishes made with homemade paste, purists insist.
Capitalising on the huge demand for fresh ginger-garlic paste, 85-year-old Basheerunisa Begum has turned entrepreneur, just to support the education of her three grand daughters. The enterprise has now turned into a small way of sustenance.
The chubby octogenarian who chuckles like a baby at things she finds funny, reacts like an excited kid while narrating stories of people she meets, even as she walks at a pace that have many of us struggling to catch up. She is no hot-shot entrepreneur with a sound financial background.
Her story in her own words: “When I lost my husband at the age of 25, my son Syed Abdul Raoof was 3 months old and all I knew was Urdu and Arabic. I wasn’t skilled to do other things. My grief wouldn’t feed us and I couldn’t depend on others to run my home. So, I began tutoring children in Urdu and Arabic and earned enough to sustain both of us,” she recalls as she sits clutching a cold glass of water.
“Thankfully the house was our own. So it saved us from the trouble of rents and house searches. I was grief-stricken but I wasn’t ready to marry someone else just because I was helpless. My goal was to educate my son, somehow. He studied till Std X and has very beautiful handwriting. Now he writes on vehicles as a painter.”
So, how did this part-time Urdu and Arabic teacher begin selling ginger garlic? “I was getting old and visiting homes to teach was getting difficult. In one of the homes where I used to teach Arabic, the lady asked me if there’s a way she could get fresh ginger garlic paste. Unadulterated at that. I readily said, ‘I will make it for you.’ From there I got the idea and have been making paste and even selling peeled ginger and garlic,” says Basheerunisa.
Her day begins with peeling and goes onto grinding in the right proportion, till dusk, until she has finished her quota for an order. She says, initially her neck hurt and she found the job boring. “But slowly, this became a habit, now I do it quite easily. My daughter-in-law helps me and my grand daughters join us occasionally.”
She delivers the finished paste or peeled ginger and garlic on her own, travelling by bus or on foot from LB Nagar where she resides to places like Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills. Apart from her regular loyal customers, she also takes party orders. “All the good people I met have helped me make a decent earning to educate my grand daughters,” says Basheerunisa pointing towards Mujtaba Hasan Askari of Helping Hand Foundation — a registered NGO which works for the disadvantaged sections of the society in the Health and Medical care. They also provide guidance, counseling, advocacy and financial assistance to the disadvantaged sections of the society. Mujtaba is now quietly spreading the word to help Basheerunissa sell more.
It was Basheerunissa’s grit and determination that helped educate her three grand daughters; they now want to pursue higher studies. “One has completed her engineering; and wants to do MS and then teach. The other completed her degree and my youngest granddaughter scored very well in her Inter 1st year,” she says with pride.
