thespace.ink has collaborated with ‘Word Munchers’, a creative writing platform that trains and encourages kids and youngsters to hone their creative writing skills. thespace.ink will be publishing two short essays by students of ‘Word Munchers’ every Saturday.
The lockdown had started off as boring, but one fine day, I came up with a way to wash away that boredom. Here’s how– it was a normal Sunday morning, well as normal as it could be in this pandemic. I woke up late, without any plans for the day, I thought it would just be a usual Sunday with nothing exciting to do. After breakfast, I settled down to watch something on TV. While surfing through the channels, I chanced upon a programme, Mastercook, about a teen entrepreneur– someone who had started to bake bread at home and soon was supplying to his neighbourhood.
That gave me an idea to try to bake cakes but I didn’t know how to. I was not good at cooking. I started watching baking tutorials on YouTube. Guess what? After a few failed attempts, I baked my first perfect cake! Even I was impressed with myself because I had not expected this at all. I kept trying new recipes to get better at it — measuring, mixing, baking everyday for a week and sending my experiments for my friends to try. I realised that I was getting the hang of it! Everyone loved the cakes and I received a lot of encouragement and praise. My mother also started helping me and soon we were smoothly rolling along as a team. We started getting orders from friends and family. ‘Baking and Making’ we named our home venture as we started to deliver through Swiggy. People mostly ordered chocolate, orange, vanilla, and banana dates cakes.
Mind you, we were doing this from home. The kitchen became a factory and perpetually looked like a war zone. We started earning money in just a few days and put aside the earnings to save for rainy days.
In 4-5 months, when we had saved the earnings of Rs. 50,000 rupees, we decided to keep Rs. 15, 000 for myself to use when I grow up. We bought a new oven with Rs. 20, 000 and I bought a watch for my mom. The balance we donated to a nearby home for orphans and the homeless. I felt good about spending the earnings wisely.
We started to bake faster and better with the new oven and more practice. We reduced our prices, offered more variety and started to get more orders.
Oh, it’s been so much fun that being home for months hasn’t been boring at all. Who would have thought that pandemic would bring such a wonderful opportunity!