Kondrahalli
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Cooks' village
Faced with odds like unemployment, drought and parched lands, households of Kondrahalli village have made this an alternative source of income
In Karnataka, Kondrahalli village goes by the moniker ‘Banasigara grama’ (cooks’ village). A majority of the people here are landless and many worked on fields owned by farmers in surrounding villages. But with every passing generation, finding agricultural work and sustaining a livelihood from it was becoming increasingly difficult.
Career change
The struggles of two generations of families served as a catalyst for this career change. “Instead of depending on others and blaming nature, we opted to take up cooking,” says Nagaraj, who holds Bachelor’s degree, but prefers working as cook.
“We are happy with our profession as it feeds our families. It gives us pleasure to feed other people and get paid for his,” Sathish adds.
Most villagers, like Sathish and his brothers, are second-generation cooks having learned the tools of the trade from their fathers.
Only the men cook, and their profession for the most part takes them to Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Be it marriages, house warming ceremonies, political functions or birthdays, the cooks of Kondrahalli are in demand.
Not all 60 families cook for one event. “An order comes in, and depending on the size of the event, a team of 15 to 20 male cooks will go to the venue,” says a villager, adding that on an average they charge ₹40,000 to ₹60,000, which is then divided up among the cooks. The leader of the team — the person who brings in the order — usually gets takes home ₹4,000-₹5,000; for big assignments he can earn as much as ₹10,000.
“We have experience cooking for even 40,000 people particularly during functions organised by politicians,” says Sathish.
The cooks of Kondrahalli are adept at different cuisines, but their holiges are in great demand, they say. (Holiges, like puran polis, are sweet flat breads with delicious stuffings made from sugar and peanuts to coconuts and tur dal, cooked on a hot girdle with liberal helpings of ghee.) Mysore Paak is another speciality.
Regular contracts
Their fame guarantees them regular contracts from tour operators across north and south India. “None of us have any formal training. Practice makes us good cooks,” says villager Basavaraj, who is of course, a cook. During peak marriage and grihapravesha seasons, the men leave the village to go on “cooking missions”.
“The men folk will be away for months on end working in far-off places like Kuppam, Punganur and Ramasandra in Andhra Pradesh and Alangai, Kaveripatna, Karimangala, Ambur and Baragur in Tamil Nadu,” says Sathish’s sister-in-law, Saritha.
At home, women help with preparatory work. “We prepare masalas on grinding stones when the power goes off,” Saritha adds. But when the men return to Kondrahalli from their missions, it is the women who prepare their food. Some gender roles are hard to break.
