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I was born in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. Food has always excited my mind and thrilled my belly since my childhood days, I lived in an era which defined togetherness. While I’m a Punjabi, my neighbors were Biharis, Sindhis, Marwaris and Brahmins. I had the pleasure of tasting various forms of Indian food. After school, my friends and I walked for miles to taste the best local street food.
I shifted to Delhi for my graduation and post-graduation. I studied at Delhi University, North Campus and lived in a hostel. During hostel days, especially on any of my room-mates' birthdays, we went out and had the best street foods. Those days, I unknowingly started exploring the lanes of Delhi to find the best street food. And also, those were the initial days of my converting into a non-vegetarian.
After completing my education, I attempted for UPSC but never entered the final rounds. I always wanted to do something for society, so if not UPSC, then NGO seemed the best option. In 2011, we organised a food tour near RK Ashram Metro Station. It was a fun day. Each person contributed Rs. 200, and in the end, we saved Rs. 50 per person as well. I decided to do these food tours at regular intervals. And during the same time, I started my blog ‘Street Food of Delhi’. During that time, my average day started at the NGO, while evenings at the street food hub and the night ended with a blog.
During that same period, I got an email from German Online Magazine. They liked my blogs and wanted me to assist them on a Delhi Food Tour. I agreed and took them through the lanes of Old Delhi during breakfast hours, just before my office time. They loved the tour and published the tour in the German-Online Magazine.
From that time onwards, I started getting regular phone calls for food walks- community and customised. Slowly and steadily, we started to grow. By the end of 2011, I changed my blog’s name from ‘Street Food Delhi’ to 'Delhi Food Walks'. People started recognising it. Most importantly, the media started to recognise us. Delhi Food Walks was featured in New York Times. By the end of 2014, with the great inflow of requests, I thought, it was time to bid adieu to full-time NGO work and invest all my time in Delhi Food Walks.
Our planned shoots for the major parts of Bihar in the months of winter helped us during the Covid-19 pandemic as we post only one video per week. However, after the Bihar series was over, things started getting difficult for us. We didn’t have any backup plan. One small backup plan was to start a new recipe channel by the name DFWEXplore where we document home-based recipes. However, after the monsoon, things ease down a bit, and at least we could travel by road to nearby places like Uttarakhand or Rajasthan.
For me, food is all about social interactions and stories of people. When you eat someone's food, you are respect and appreciating their culture. It connects people. It defines your understanding of the world.
It is important to share the story of food, the people and local culture with everyone. Therefore, my food vlogs describe the colour, texture and taste of food and the history, culture, tradition and people related to it.
Don’t you feel Delhi Food Walk’s story gives us a fresh perspective on food?
It’s an amazing point of view.
Delhi Stories is an emerging platform to feature inspirational, motivational, relatable and beautiful stories. Do you also have an insightful story like Anubhav?
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