Making pithas for a living
Md Mahbubur Rahman Bulbul | Tuesday, 24 February 2009
MANY women make traditional Bangladeshi pithas, a kind of indigenous cake, in the Dhaka city for a living. Women making pithas is a common sight in the city these days. Bhapa, chitai, pati shapta, etc. -- all tasty pithas -- are particularly popular.
About ten thousand women do this to support their families. They make the pithas usually in the evening at rather low prices for a variety of customers. Making and selling pithas on the city pavements, lanes and even on the highways is a brisk business. The customers, drawn from rickshaw pullers to the middle or even upper income brackets, defy class barriers for the tantalising pithas.
Specially the winter is the time for the pithas. The poor women make and sell the pithas out in the open or from tiny makeshift shops.
They are mostly wives of day-labourers or rickshawpullers, living in shanties. They make the ingredients, mainly rice flour and scraped coconut kernel at home and buy 'gur' (molasses) to sweeten the pithas, which became fast foods of the winter. They use simple burners to either bake or make some of the pithas on steam.
Some of the makeshift shops provide sitting arrangement for the customers, who love the pithas hot and just out of the oven.
Good as snacks and for breakfast, many people love to take it home. The women who make it are from the countryside, known for an endless variety of tasty pithas. Indeed, the pithas provide a taste of Bangladesh.
Popular among students and teachers alike, the pitha makers spend busy time on the campuses as well.
'Pitha' making makes many poor families self-reliant. But it provides seasonal self-employment.
According to a case study, 50-year old Mrs Ambia Begum supports her 80-year old husband and 10-year old son by selling pithas. Her son Sujan studies in class four in a school at Mirpur where the family has been living for 25 years, since she came from Jinjira, not far from the city. She runs two pitha shops in the city and for her small business she borrowed Tk 10,000 from ASA, the micro finance institution, in 2001, facing a financial crisis. Next time, she borrowed Tk 15,000 from ASA. She invested all of it in her business. Ambia Begum took the third loan of Tk 20,000 to expand her business. Now she owns two pitha shops and employs ten workers. After meeting the costs her business leaves her with a net monthly income of Tk 15,000.
She bought a three-katha plot of land and plans to start a poultry-farm at Mirpur. She is happy with her business. Self-employed Ambia Begum can be a role model of women micro entrepreneurs who generated employment for others too.
(The writer is serving the ASA)
About ten thousand women do this to support their families. They make the pithas usually in the evening at rather low prices for a variety of customers. Making and selling pithas on the city pavements, lanes and even on the highways is a brisk business. The customers, drawn from rickshaw pullers to the middle or even upper income brackets, defy class barriers for the tantalising pithas.
Specially the winter is the time for the pithas. The poor women make and sell the pithas out in the open or from tiny makeshift shops.
They are mostly wives of day-labourers or rickshawpullers, living in shanties. They make the ingredients, mainly rice flour and scraped coconut kernel at home and buy 'gur' (molasses) to sweeten the pithas, which became fast foods of the winter. They use simple burners to either bake or make some of the pithas on steam.
Some of the makeshift shops provide sitting arrangement for the customers, who love the pithas hot and just out of the oven.
Good as snacks and for breakfast, many people love to take it home. The women who make it are from the countryside, known for an endless variety of tasty pithas. Indeed, the pithas provide a taste of Bangladesh.
Popular among students and teachers alike, the pitha makers spend busy time on the campuses as well.
'Pitha' making makes many poor families self-reliant. But it provides seasonal self-employment.
According to a case study, 50-year old Mrs Ambia Begum supports her 80-year old husband and 10-year old son by selling pithas. Her son Sujan studies in class four in a school at Mirpur where the family has been living for 25 years, since she came from Jinjira, not far from the city. She runs two pitha shops in the city and for her small business she borrowed Tk 10,000 from ASA, the micro finance institution, in 2001, facing a financial crisis. Next time, she borrowed Tk 15,000 from ASA. She invested all of it in her business. Ambia Begum took the third loan of Tk 20,000 to expand her business. Now she owns two pitha shops and employs ten workers. After meeting the costs her business leaves her with a net monthly income of Tk 15,000.
She bought a three-katha plot of land and plans to start a poultry-farm at Mirpur. She is happy with her business. Self-employed Ambia Begum can be a role model of women micro entrepreneurs who generated employment for others too.
(The writer is serving the ASA)