The Chapati Chronicles

The glorious chapatis that always appeared on your plate, warm, fluffy and just as crisp as you liked them. Unseen hands would knead the dough, let it rest; roll out the little balls and then allow them to sit on the hot tawa, getting freckled golden brown, puffing up in their own heat. Magical discs, golden balloons, just the right texture, the right size to enfold and embrace vegetables and keema, and to polish off the last dregs of curry from the plate. 

In India, a hot chapati was your God given right!

Even a humble pavement dweller in crowded Bombay could look forward to this small joy. Setting up a makeshift stove in a secluded corner, without even a rolling pin or board, the women squat on the ground, nonchalantly slapping the dough from hand to hand until a perfect disc evolves. It rises like a full moon on the open fire. Even if there is no vegetable, a hot chapati, eaten with a killer green chili or a piece of onion, is pleasure enough.

In the United States, new Indian immigrants, like wide-eyed kids in a candy store, were first enamored of the wonderful, very, very white Wonder bread. But soon they hankered for their own earthy, flavorful chapatis. Only, who was to make them? There were no cooks or helpful mothers-in-law or even Chotu, the kitchen boy, to roll out the chapatis. The horrific truth finally dawned: they were on their own in this chapati-less land.

Even women who had been full-time housewives in India hardly had the time to knead and roll in this new life of 9 to 5 workdays and being all things to all people. Often Middle Eastern pitas or Greek breads had to substitute. Then came the Indian grocery revolution where ready-made chapatis began appearing on the shelves. Salvation was at last at hand.

The world, however, is divided into two groups of people: those who must have their homemade chapatis and those who will make do with impostors, having long abandoned those feverish attempts that turned into lop-sided maps of India. Now we have the chapati chefs - a ragtag army of rollers and slappers who can put those warm, tantalizing breads on your table once again.

Every neighborhood with a dense Indian population seems to have women who will come to your home and cook, or prepare the foods you need at their own home. Queens, New York, is especially a paradise for getting home-cooked food since so many new immigrants are proficient at cooking and are looking for a side income. Word of mouth tells of Indian cleaning ladies who will whip up rotis or dhokla for you on weekends. There are others who only do the cooking in your home, typically at $10 per hour. Across Long Island and New Jersey, Indian women will cook the food you don't have time for at a going rate of $13-15.

Usha Rastogi of Forest Hills, N.Y., is one housewife who relies upon this help for her chapatis. When she was younger, she says, she made the chapatis, but now prefers to do the cooking and outsource the cumbersome job of roti-making to the Chapati Brigade. Phone a day ahead with your order. Next day you pick up your homemade chapatis and still have your immaculate kitchen. Rastogi orders them from Karuna Patel, a Gujarati woman, who, she says, makes the thinnest, softest rotis imaginable. Rastogi even sends them all the way to Charleston, N.C., to her son and his family.

Karuna Patel is something of a roti whiz and has been rolling chapatis for the neighborhood for some time. Her reputation has spread by word of mouth and she does not deliver. She will visit homes in Manhattan to cook authentic Gujarati vegetarian food. Her stack of rotis cost $25 for a hundred, each the size of a snack plate. Her chapatis are made without oil, so a hundred is manageable volume, really!

Many of the women in the cooking business lack language or educational background to find work in the mainstream and turn to their culinary skills to supplement the family income. The demand for ethnic food, both from Indians as well as the mainstream, ensures a steady market for their work.

About a decade ago, the local grapevine related the tale of a woman in Jackson Heights who made great cocktail samosas. This was before Indian grocery stores were carrying them, and so just by word of mouth, many hungry souls would stop at her home to pick up the treats. A real entrepreneur, she kept two refrigerators packed with packets of samosas. Often she would be at the kitchen table, late in the evening, conjuring up the bite sized samosas. Then her samosas began appearing in grocery stores and the home business evaporated.
New York has two amazing success stories built a roti at a time. Both businesses are in Queens, where women have taken fate into their own hands by turning their kitchen into a thriving business.