Manasi Mathkar talks to Meena Chillal, the lady behind the highly popular Parampara Masala

Parampara Masala is a household name in India and across the globe only because of Meena Chillal’s immense grit and determination. Coming from a business family, she saw extreme lows when things went wrong with her in-laws’ business and they went bankrupt. For Meena, educating her three children was of utmost priority. However, with her husband being a commerce graduate and she herself finishing education only till the 10th standard, finding a job was almost impossible. “Fortunately, I cook well, and my husband and myself took a small place on rent and started a takeaway outlet, dishing out specialities of our community. Even though we had almost 200 workers working for us earlier, we never looked at serving food to customers as a below dignity job,” says Meena.

The story of how Parampara Masala started is as interesting as how they later marketed their product. Tells Meena, “Once I had to leave the shop early and hence, I kept all the masalas ready and just asked my husband to add meat to it later, for our customers at the takeaway counter. That’s when he hit upon this idea of bringing out ready-to-eat packaged masalas. But we had no money to market the product. So we started distributing free packets of our masalas to our customers, and those became an instant hit.

When our customers requested for the same at some of the popular grocery stores in the city, the shopowners themselves requested to us that we keep our masalas in their shops. And thus we gained a backdoor entry into the market, without costing us much.”

What is heartening is that Parampara insists on hiring women from villages, who are mostly illiterate, and then impart training. The company also sponsors their children’s education up to 10th standard. Considering their background, Meena is very particular that these women don’t fall prey to superstitions and wrong traditions. In fact, she has even made them stop fasting, especially in the month of Shravan. “We need strength to work hard and every afternoon we distribute bananas to all the employees, which we grow at our farmhouse next to the factory. Today, we have 100 woman workers and 10 men, for whom we genuinely care. They all come to me with their personal problems and we share our joys and sorrows with each other. They call it ‘their factory’ and even celebrate Guru Pournima, for us. I believe people just need a few kind words; there are no other expectations. That gives us immense joy while working,” Meena shares the secret of her success.

The Chillal family sticks together through thick and thin and Meena gives 100 per cent credit to her husband for his unrelenting support. Her eldest son completed his education in computers and also got a great job. But he insisted on joining his parents and has been instrumental in bringing state-of-the-art technology at their factory.

Churning out 15 vegetarian, 27 non-vegetarian and 6 masalas for starters has been a painstaking effort. After 15 years of existence, Parampara is now available in multiple countries, with the masala tastes altered according to the population. “There goes in a lot of research to perfect a masala, and we solely rely on our tasting skills for the same. You wouldn’t believe, but we literally get boils on our tongues, tasting food and masalas so often, to identify every ingredient. Of course, then we don’t enjoy visiting restaurants much,” smiles Meena.

With her able guidance, Parampara is sure to go a long way!