Carrying is caring

Indians are in danger of losing their greatest love language: carting sustenance across state lines. JYOTI KUMARI makes a case for being someone’s food mule in the age of 10-minute deliveries.

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The last time I missed a train was 25 years ago. My brother and I watched it chug out of the platform as we ran towards it, a bag of white and red cardboard boxes tied with a string swinging from our hands. We had been delayed at Chowk buying biryani, galouti kebabs and desserts like shahi tukda. We were leaving Lucknow, my nanihal, and returning without kebabs for our neighbours back home in Delhi was blasphemous.

In the years since, I have remained a food mule for family and friends. Kapur kand (a dessert made from bottle gourd) from Kannauj. Milk cake from Alwar. Gunpowder, mustard, Shrewsbury biscuits from Pune. I have hauled spices from Chettinad for chef friends, and vegetables from a village on the Delhi-Jaipur highway because my mother is convinced their tinda (round gourd) is superior to all others. Back in the day, I used to cajole my Mumbai friends to cart Naturals Ice Cream in travel boxes to Delhi, just for a taste of that soul-melting sitaphal. Always remember, the friends who carry food are keepers. But what's in it for me and so many others who do this?

Since the arrival of delivery apps, the answer has become tougher to articulate. The garlic chutney I used to lug back from Jaipur now arrives at my doorstep. The biscuits I once sourced from Karachi Bakery in Hyderabad can be shipped overnight. Even Bikaneri bhujia, which I have spirited across continents in suitcases that smelled faintly of besan for months afterwards, is 20 minutes away on Blinkit. And yet, I keep carrying on.