Salem Kitchen

Transit - the food court in forum mall,Bangalore is a costly saviour to our poor hunger pangs. Forum is reasonably a good place to hangout,treat our eyes,dream colorfully & burn calories too, after rounds of mindless roaming & insensible shopping there.But Transit houses a variety of food stalls with a crooked intention to dump all the bad calories on us while we dump all our money on them.All in the game of addressing the Cosmo culture's taste buds.Displayed are almost all varieties of food available under the sun tempting the eyes & watering the mouth.

When i had been there for the first time,something that caught my eye was a stall named Salem Kitchen.The name was so authentic to me amidst the other colourful stalls though i never wanted to eat anything from there at that point in time.I settled down with a subway sandwich somewhere near our Salem Kitchen due to space constraint over the weekend.Happened to browse through the menu there and was super shell shocked to read the very second item in the menu.It read

Idlly ---------------------- 20Rs

Idlly with Mutton Gravy ---80Rs

Just looked around in that heavy crowd if someone was actually eating the above menu and yes there were many.There were just 2 idllys in a plate with possibly the smallest scoop of sambar & another same scoop full of chutney beside.And someone actually was crossing me with the second menu as well.The same two idllys with just a bony piece of meat floating like an iceberg from the sea of mutton gravy.Looked as if the gravy might not be sufficient for the entire second idlly.

People from south who live in Bangalore basically being away from home find these authentic menus simply as substitutes for mom's cooking.Money isn't really a big deal for them since the time they get to spend this money is very less compared to the time they spend on earning all their money in the same city.And creative kitchens like these capitalize on these facts & the figures that these kind of people earn.Mmm .... great idea from a business point of view.Simplest shortcut for a creative idea generator.Foolish from the perception of an avaricious consumer.Let everybody live thought from a happy consumer's perception.Where do i dig down further ?

For a minute thoughts went down the memory lane.Scenes of mommy grinding idlly batter at home with just a pint of rice & a less than a pint of uradh dhal for less than 1 hour yielding around 3 dozen idllys.And a kg of mutton made as gravy serving a family of four for 3 days,flashed in front of me.With some simple math all i understood was the cost to make these 3 dozen idllys at home rounded off to less than Rs 45 including the units of power thatz consumed by the grinder.A kg of mutton consisting 25 big chunks of meat pieces costs at the max 350 Rs.And the money to prepare a gravy out of it would be another 50 bucks.In all a capital of 450 Rs could be multiplied in to 18*80 =1440 Rs.

18 = #of plates that could be churned out each consisting 2 Idllys

80 = An easily affordable price by a person visiting Transit inside Forum in Bangalore

Ada cha what am i doing in an IT company spending all my precious time & energy building business at a grass root level for some establishing empire in the US or UK ? was this fresh engineering grad's initial thought after a simple calculation.I hated to be a helpless consumer on that day.After few months i felt whatz wrong ? Every business is an idea built in to a reality.After all i am a consumer of so many things under the sun.Just that i couldn't comprehend how the others work and i just could with this one.Itz not fair i told myself.I knew these were the realisations of a tyro's business inclined mentality. Few months later,i realised behind every glossy name,a colourful banner,a smiling sales girl stands a sure business tactic,a strong business strategy and the whole world works with just these principles.And as a working population we all assume some invisible roles in these huge games plot by very few creative heads who too are mostly invisible.Wished to be one,that moment !

Salem Kitchen was just my eye opener.Thatz the day i began to see money in a different light.A penny no doubt multiplies in to a pound.Just a simple but a strong idea has itz own power .Mmm ... eating a subway sandwich right in front of Salem kitchen was definitely worth a lesson.In fact my first striking business lesson.Same must be the strategy of subway as well where i paid a whopping 100 bucks for a single sandwich sold wrapping the 'Health' word to me.