Vichare Masala

The Vichare Building is an old one, and you can find us at number 374 on Gendigate Road. We’re right near the Darwaja, so there is always a lot of history and movement around us. At Vichare Masala, the air always carries a heavy scent of cumin, coriander, and chilies. It’s a smell that gets into your hair and stays there even after you go home. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and the methods haven’t changed much over the years. We still look at the spices the way we always have, checking the color and the feel of the seeds. It’s a family kind of place, where we know our neighbors and the people who walk past our doors every day. The building itself has seen better days, with its old walls and creaky floors, but it’s home to us. We don't have any fancy marketing slogans or big advertising budgets. People come to us because they know who we are and they’ve seen us working here for decades. When the festival season comes around, it gets incredibly busy and we’re all on our feet for twelve hours a day. We grind the spices, we weigh them out, and we wrap them up. It’s simple, honest work that keeps us connected to the community. We don't need much more than that to be happy with what we do. There's a lot of pride in the grinding stone.