Vasu is one person who has not ever gotten into a profession but he pursued his hobby his entire life. He did something he loved and what was taught to him, not what was forced upon him. Even though he pursued something he loved and may not have achieved financial success that others crave but he surely lives a happy life .
A story of a traditional baker living in the modern life, still going the old way with baking… Here’s telling you why.
How did you learn the art of baking?
My father was a baker. I would often wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread. My mother would make black tea and give me a ring in hand. I wondered how people made it. One early morning I quietly sneaked into my father’s workroom which was actually a bakery. My mother would tell me that it was a magical room and nobody was allowed to enter. One day, I entered it and saw that my father was putting something in a small cave like thing. I was really curious and wanted to know all about it. At the age of 10 I sat with him in the bakery, he taught me how to bake bread and from then on I wanted to learn baking and be a baker.
You could have done other things. Why become a baker?
I didn’t choose this as a profession. I took it up as a hobby because I love baking. Also economically, there was a high demand for bread in the early days. A rupee was a big amount. Nowadays daily expenses have made it very difficult to survive on that same rupee. The government has increased the rate of bread to 5 rupees which should have been done a long time ago.
Describe the life of a baker to us .
Waking up early in the morning is not a joke. My day begins at about 3-3.30am with baking bread. Working people prefer their breakfast at 6 o’ clock early in the morning. It takes a lot of time to prepare bread and also deliver it to the entire village. My father passed away when I was 15 and my mother was a housewife. I couldn’t let her work. The bakery that my father worked at belonged to someone else. I couldn’t afford to pay him the rent of that place, therefore, I started working at a bakery in another village.
Have you tried to expand your bread business?
Nothing. I just bake bread and go and sell it in the village. Restaurants nearby need bread everyday so they come and buy it from the bakery. I have spent my entire life doing this. Sometimes we get orders for bread from people for different occasions, functions, feasts or events. That is the time to earn.
What do you have to say about baking as a profession now?
People have taken up baking as an art now. They use modern technologies and electric ovens to bake bread. Bakery courses have started and many people have enrolled in it. Modern technologies make life faster and easier.
Hopefully there are more people like Vasu who pursue their passion over monetary gains. After all it is better to have lived a happy life rather than a wealthy one with no happiness . . .
