Every Mumbaikar remembers 26/11. Anandita and Arundhati Parekh can never forget. Their parents had gone for dinner to The Oberoi and never returned. The girls were 12 and 10.
“It took a while to realise that they are never coming back,” confesses Anandita Parekh, who is scribbling furiously in her notebook while she talks. She stops and says, “It was just a random day… my sister was just 10 and asleep… thankfully my aunt lived in the same building, and we were a joint family, we stayed with our grandparents. They took care of us. There was not much of a transition physically… but emotionally yes… it was traumatic… and I don’t really talk about it or revisit… but yes, on occasions, the void is more deeply felt.”
Anandita schooled at Cathedral and went later to the Barnard College of Columbia University, US for her graduation. Arundhati followed her after a year. Her grandfather looked after the family business of shipping and logistics, waiting for his granddaughters to take over after they got back. However, destiny had other plans. When Anandita came back from US after a few months of internship at a logistics company, she had made up her mind. She didn’t want to be in that kind of a business.
“Actually, I did try my luck at that. I knew very well that it's a male dominated field. But I just wanted to try because my dad started his own shipping company. And I said, ‘why not, you know, take forward his legacy?’ One day, I was sitting at my desk and my best friend from Bombay messaged me saying that she was really struggling with her food. She wanted me to help her with her nutrition plan. So, I was an intern sitting at this desk job in America where they had their work going… I was getting some learning at work like nothing crazy… and I saw myself making her a nutrition plan sitting there at my desk! And I realized that I enjoyed it so much because I was getting creative with the food… I was creating with what she enjoyed. I was working with limited things that she enjoyed but making them healthier… That was like a wakeup call. I came back.”
But it took Covid for Anandita to realise her dream. Arundhati was back because of lockdown. She was in the 2020 class. Therefore, was no graduation ceremony for her. Anandita could see her sister feeling low because of that. To lift her spirits, she recreated Arundhati’s college life at home. “I recreated her college life in our living room at home. I did like this whole eight course meal which I cooked by myself. From Upper West Side, which is where our college was to the Lower East Side where she would frequent often and all her favorite restaurants. Like through a subway map… I did like this whole journey from Barnard to lower West, Lower East Side and he would stop at, like, a Serafina… I made all her favorite meals from her favourite restaurants.”
That was the trigger that Anandita needed. “That was the first stint by me ever. Thinking of opening anything formulated then.” Anandita started Cravin By Andy as a cloud kitchen from her home. “A lot of things on our menu like cinnamon munchkins and like other random things were all actually part of my sister's graduation lunch.”
It was a struggle. Word of mouth got her orders. There were days with just three orders and days when everything was sold out. However, she kept working and the business, soon, was rocking with her making gift hampers for top companies like Estee Lauder. It was time to expand and go beyond the cloud kitchen. Opening a café was the next step. “No one gave me the idea. Very honestly, I think for me, the concept of giving back to society is very deeply ingrained from my grandma. She truly thrives on doing service for society. And for me, giving healthy food option to the society was a way to do it.”
For Anandita, personally, healthy food was not an option, but a compulsion of sorts because her trauma had given her gut issues. Did you start working around healthy options because of your own gut issues? “150%! I kind of adopted it over time, but it's also because I'm so health focused, and very passionate about nutrition myself. It's almost second nature.”
What is the next step now? “We've just taken a space next door which is going to serve as our a larger space for our kitchen. I'm going to be getting onto delivery apps, but primarily for desserts, my retail items and coffee. Not our favourite items, which are also perishable, because I want people to come in here and enjoy. Then looking at other verticals like I mentioned, looking at what we can do with this physical space… like I want to have health talks, I want to do things in this physical space because there's so many people that truly are interested. So, let's see. I mean I'm not, you know, I'm I I don't think too far ahead because I would rather focus on the present.”
