'She Chops Vegetables, I Cook Food': Baba Ka Dhaba Power Couple Does not Believe in Gendered Roles

A video featuring a Delhi-based food vendor, Baba ka Dhaba, went viral across social media platforms within hours of making it available online recently. The video was shared by food blogger Gaurav Wasan last week wherein an elderly couple expressed the hardships they faced during lockdown.

The octogenarian food vendor, named Kanta Prasad, cooks home-made food with his wife from a small kiosk Baba Ka Dhaba in South Delhi's Malviya Nagar locality. The video shared by the food blogger reached millions soon and garnered massive support from netizens. By the next day, there were long queues outside the little eatery.

Recently, Prasad spoke to Official Humans of Bombay in an interview and opened up about his early life and how the viral video made an impact overnight. Prasad, along with wife Badami Devi, shared a heart-warming story from their childhood marriage to running a small street-side food joint together. Prasad revealed that he was 5 when he got married to Badami Devi who was 3. He recounted how on the wedding day, his wife looked like a doll.

He said that he and his wife thought that they were going to attend a party. This is the day of their wedding ceremony when they were dressed in new clothes. On the day, they were fed with laddoos and sent home after some rituals. Prasad mentioned that, in those days, both of them had no idea they got married. They met once in a year like catching up with old friends, he added.

They understood later the responsibility of being a married couple and when ‘Badami Ji’ turned 21 and came to live with him. The food vendor mentioned that he and his wife together in the year 1990 opened Baba Ka Dhaba. His wife chops vegetables and he cooks in the stall.

He mentioned that in their relationship there is nothing such as a ‘man’s job’ or a ‘woman’s job’. They are 50 percent partners in the business, he added.