Growing up in rural eastern Uttar Pradesh, some of my earliest memories are tied to food.
I remember the sharp fragrance of raw mangoes meeting mustard oil, jars spread out in the summer sun, red chillies stuffed with spices, and papad drying on rooftops. I remember growing up in families that never needed recipe books because the recipes lived within them.
My parents knew these traditions.
My grandparents knew them too.
For a long time, I assumed that this knowledge would always remain. But the world around us was changing.
Between Two Worlds
Like millions of Indians, I grew up between two worlds.
One was the village I came from, and the other was the towns and cities that increasingly shaped our aspirations.
India itself was changing. Economic reforms that began in 1991 transformed the country's economy and created new opportunities. Education, employment, and mobility allowed many families to dream differently, while expanding cities, better roads, and improved communication connected people in ways that earlier generations could scarcely imagine.
These changes brought opportunities that many families had long hoped for.
However, the story of change was more complex than a simple story of progress. Alongside these gains, India's villages were also undergoing transformations that would gradually reshape everyday life and traditional ways of living.
In Many Villages, Migration Changed Families
Men often moved away in search of work, and children later left for education and employment. Those who remained carried the responsibility of keeping households and communities together.
Women were often at the centre of that story.
Today, women account for more than 42 percent of India's agricultural workforce, and in many parts of the country their responsibilities extend far beyond farming. They cultivate fields, care for livestock, manage households, preserve seeds, and pass on knowledge that has sustained communities for generations.
Much of this work remains invisible and often goes unrecognized.
Yet many of the foods that marked different seasons and many of the traditions that connected generations survived because someone quietly continued the work of preserving them.
More often than not, that person was a woman.
Returning Home and Seeing Change
As I grew older and returned to the villages I had known as a child, I noticed both continuity and change.
Roads had improved, electricity had reached more homes, and mobile phones had connected people in ways previous generations could never have imagined.
But the markets looked different too.
The same packaged products that filled shelves in cities had arrived in villages. Foods that once marked particular seasons had become less common, not because people had stopped valuing them, but because life itself had changed.
Families had become smaller, and people had less time than they once did.
Knowledge that had once passed naturally from one generation to another no longer travelled so easily.
Somewhere along the way, I began asking myself difficult questions.
What happens when recipes disappear?
What happens when food memories fade?
What happens when the knowledge held by ordinary people is never documented?
Those questions stayed with me.
Eventually, they became Gramin Roots.
Why Gramin Roots Exists
Gramin Roots was not born from a market study or a business opportunity. It emerged from concern and, perhaps even more importantly, from gratitude.
I felt grateful to the generations that preserved food long before refrigeration became common. I felt grateful to those whose knowledge rarely found a place in history books. I felt grateful to villages that taught us to live with the rhythms of seasons and to communities that developed ways of preserving abundance through patience and experience.
At the same time, I became increasingly concerned that much of this wisdom was becoming less visible.
I did not want these traditions to survive only as memories. I wanted them to remain part of living culture. I hoped they would continue to evolve, adapt, and nourish communities rather than become objects of nostalgia.
That hope became the foundation of Gramin Roots.
Looking Ahead
This journey is still at its beginning, and there is much that I do not know. There are many stories yet to hear, many traditions yet to understand, and many communities from whom I still have much to learn.
Over the coming years, I hope that Gramin Roots can work alongside rural entrepreneurs, members of Self-Help Groups, farmers associated with Farmer Producer Organizations, artisans, and small producers who continue to preserve local knowledge and food traditions.
This hope does not come from a belief that villages need saving. Rather, it comes from a belief that rural communities possess knowledge worth respecting and supporting.
I believe that development and dignity should go together, and that culture and livelihoods should not have to stand apart from one another.
More Than Food
Every pickle carries something larger than ingredients.
It carries memories of seasons, places, and communities. It reflects the patience and ingenuity of people who learned to preserve abundance long before modern supply chains and refrigeration.
For me, food has never been merely something to consume. It has always been one of the ways we remember who we are.
Gramin Roots is still young, and there is much to learn and much to document. But if this journey helps preserve even a small part of India's food heritage, creates opportunities rooted in culture and sustainability, and encourages future generations to ask where their food comes from and why these traditions matter, I believe the effort will have been worthwhile.
Because in the end, Gramin Roots is not about returning to the past.
It is about carrying forward what is worth remembering.
And perhaps, in doing so, discovering that we never truly left our roots behind.
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