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Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi profile imageRoshni Bajaj Sanghvi
Meet the women who quit law to become dedicated food entrepreneurs

Some serious messing around with curry leaves and blue cheese has helped former legal eagles embrace a new profession

“There are quite a few of us you know?” she said.


A bunch of food writers, bloggers and content creators were scooping up tzatziki with crackers before heading into a Greek cookout at Foodhall Cookery Studio in Mumbai in March this year. I was with fellow workshop participant Karishma Mehta. She is a lawyer and food blogger, best known for her work at Bowled Over by Kari, where she shares overhead shots of rainbow-hued bowls (and also plates) filled with all manner of hearty delicacies, from pull-apart bread to pad Thai. She has co-authored a book, Healthier Together, and has recently conducted a live cook-along, making ten recipes with 75 people, for FICCI.

Instead of receiving briefs, Sai Sabnis now works with bananas and curry leaves, blue cheese and carrots

Instead of receiving briefs, Sai Sabnis now works with bananas and curry leaves, blue cheese and carrots

Rasam Noodle Soup by Vidhi Doshi also known as Ramen Haired Girl on Instagram

Rasam Noodle Soup by Vidhi Doshi also known as Ramen Haired Girl on Instagram

Upasana Parasrampuria o-founded Pink Harvest Farms (offering healthier staples) as well as Bean to Bark

Upasana Parasrampuria o-founded Pink Harvest Farms (offering healthier staples) as well as Bean to Bark

The “us” that Mehta was speaking about earlier, it's people like her: lawyers who quit their high-powered profession for a career involving food.

Tawa paneer frankie with rice rotis by  Karishma Mehta

Tawa paneer frankie with rice rotis by  Karishma Mehta

The lure of social media

Across the table at the event was Vidhi Doshi, a graduate of the Pravin Gandhi College of Law. She interned at a few firms while at college, cooked a lot for herself when a leg injury left her mostly homebound in the final year, idly started an Instagram account so she could post the many food photos she had on her phone, reconsidered her career and found that food gives her more joy than legal work. She re-branded her original account from Just Foodstuffs and in 2018 became (the very aptly named) Ramen Haired Girl.

Mehta and Doshi are but two of a host of women who studied law, spent time preparing documents, or representing clients, often sitting for 20 hours at desks every day. Now they're studying recipes, and spending time preparing the mise en place, representing brands through collaborations, and often standing for 20 hours in the kitchen every day. I spoke with five such women to figure out why they traded lawsuits for ladles, new matters for knives, suits for stovetops.

It so happens that the kitchen is an ideal place to offset the pressures of the courtroom. Also, the physicality of food and cooking provides relief from early law work, which, I was told, can be “hard on the bum”.

For Upasana Parasrampuria, ex-national level pistol shooter, erstwhile lawyer and now food entrepreneur, it all started with shifting the focus back to herself, and her health. “The nature of the job [of a lawyer] involves long hours, and irregular meal times,” she says. “So my passion for food reignited from a health and nutrition perspective.” She went off to study at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City, and came back and founded Diet Tamasha first, and then co-founded Pink Harvest Farms (offering healthier staples) as well as Bean to Bark (refined sugar-free snacking chocolates) with her brother Devansh.

Creative flip

In many cases, these lawyers had begun to empathise with colleagues who had burned out. Or they noticed that real life didn't quite come close to the popular courtroom dramas that had set off their legal career aspirations. Sometimes, they were simply done with being part of a system where they help the rich get richer, and the powerful make a” point”.

“WE'RE FINDING OURSELVES AT A TIME WHERE PEOPLE ARE QUESTIONING WHAT THEY ARE DOING WITH THEMSELVES, THEIR MENTAL CAPACITY AND THEIR PASSIONS.”

Sai Sabnis

Mansi Shetty Bafna, co-founder and business head of Vanilla Miel patisserie and chocolaterie, did her double masters from UPenn and Wharton, then worked as a structured financing lawyer at AZB for three years. She found her job at the firm stimulating, her colleagues very intelligent. She was working on deals that made it to the front pages of the papers. Just as she began to feel drained, her sister and pastry chef Isha Shetty moved back from Australia. Together, they decided to open Vanilla Miel. The pandemic helped them expand their model from friends and family to online orders. In 2020, they opened their first dedicated kitchen. Now, Shetty Bafna describes herself as “part of the furniture” there.

The intention for each of these women was to change the way they live, and to find a new way to express themselves. “There is such a stark contrast between the two [careers],” says Doshi, who recently found joy in selling over 1,000 copies of her e-book, Quarantine Cookbook, over the pandemic. “In law, you go through every word, there is a lot of nitty-gritty [involved]. I know friends who work until 3 am on their birthdays. When you're fed up with something, you tend to go in the opposite direction. You go into something that has no rules.” When she started, Doshi claims she was a novice who needed to measure salt while cooking. Her law experience paid off; it taught her how to research recipes endlessly before developing a version of her own. Now she has 102K followers on Instagram who keenly follow her recipes, from hot sauce to hara bhara kebabs.

Freedom to experiment

For Goa-based chef and founder of Sai & Posa Kitchen, Sai Sabnis, food was always a passion. When a friend suggested to the litigator-turned-in-house counsel that she make her next move towards cooking, she did. “Work occupies most of our minds and our lives,” she says. “Your qualifications should give you freedom and not hold you back from what's calling out to you.” Instead of receiving briefs, she now works with bananas and curry leaves, blue cheese and carrots.

Lawyer-turned-food blogger, Karishma Mehta is best known for her work at Bowled Over by Kari and  has co-authored a book, Healthier Together

Lawyer-turned-food blogger, Karishma Mehta is best known for her work at Bowled Over by Kari and has co-authored a book, Healthier Together

For Upasana Parasrampuria, ex-national level pistol shooter, erstwhile lawyer and now food entrepreneur, it all started with shifting the focus back to herself, and her health

For Upasana Parasrampuria, ex-national level pistol shooter, erstwhile lawyer and now food entrepreneur, it all started with shifting the focus back to herself, and her health

When a friend suggested to the litigator-turned-in-house counsel, Sai Sabnis to make her next move towards cooking, she did so with the launch of Sai & Posa Kitchen in Goa

When a friend suggested to the litigator-turned-in-house counsel, Sai Sabnis to make her next move towards cooking, she did so with the launch of Sai & Posa Kitchen in Goa

For Mehta, similarly, the move meant a significant life change–from wearing black-and-white at a desk to wearing colour on the 'gram. “I'm a people’s person; I'm thriving,” she says. “Sixty-year-olds try my recipes, children are trying my recipes. Monetarily, I'm making more than I made as a lawyer, so I'm happy. I'm working much harder, but my timelines are my own. Law has a code of conduct; you can't advertise what you do. With food, you can tell the whole world what you've done. It offers me creativity, colour, freedom.”

Speak with anyone who has worked in a kitchen or become an entrepreneur–it's hardly an easygoing, low-pressure career or life choice. Unsurprisingly then, bar none, each of these women said that their studying and working in law has greatly informed their careers in food. Additionally, the social impact made by food, let's just say, is a bit more straightforward and egalitarian.

“IN LAW, YOU GO THROUGH EVERY WORD, THERE IS A LOT OF NITTY-GRITTY [INVOLVED]. I KNOW FRIENDS WHO WORK UNTIL 3 AM ON THEIR BIRTHDAYS. WHEN YOU'RE FED UP WITH SOMETHING, YOU TEND TO GO IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. YOU GO INTO SOMETHING THAT HAS NO RULES.”

Vidhi Doshi

“Law teaches you critical thinking, it aids in your cognitive abilities, it challenges your intellect,” says Shetty Bafna. “In the food space, [these help because] you still need to deal with licenses and clients.” Vanilla Miel works with the women who work with them. The kitchen team is mostly women who are “hardworking and street smart”; the Shetty sisters are upskilling them so that they “earn thrice to four times more than they otherwise would.”

For Sabnis, Sai & Posa has been a way to bring a slow, sustainable, conscious ethos to the fore, in food and in life. “We're finding ourselves at a time where people are questioning what they are doing with themselves, their mental capacity and their passions,” she says. “There is a lot of energy movement happening from the worlds of power to the worlds of the creative arts. There is a desire, more than ever before, to find fulfillment by contributing to something that's more basic. Food will always be one of the more basic things, and a way to bring joy to the people around you.” We suspect it will be a while before anyone says the same about a career in law.

Also Read: Is the organic food you are eating, actually organic?

Also Read: How to set up and run a successful food delivery business in India

Also Read: Cook your way through the food metaverse


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