Hyderabad Mom and Daughter Bring Podi to Atlanta

When Alak Nanda found herself locked down in her childhood Hyderabad apartment with her mother Vasavi in 2020, their conversations kept circling back to food, memories, and dreams left unfulfilled.

Vasavi, 59, shared how she felt her culinary talents had never amounted to much. Alak, then 33, knew better because she'd grown up watching her mother craft the perfect podis, those magical South Indian spice powders that transform simple rice into comfort food.

Podi held special meaning for Vasavi, who spent her childhood as her own mother's sous chef, grinding roasted moong beans in an old stone grinder. Those hours together making podi embodied her relationship with her mother, and now she was sharing that same bond with her daughter.

The duo decided to launch a website for their homemade podis, using their lockdown time and tech skills to turn family recipes into a business. Within five months, orders flooded in from across India, even reaching the Northeast and Himachal Pradesh where authentic South Indian podis were hard to find.

When the pandemic's second wave forced Alak to return to the US, she brought the business with her. The validation they'd received in India convinced her that Atlanta's South Asian community would embrace these tastes of home.

Podi Life now offers a range of seasonings made with ingredients specific to the Indian subcontinent. Each variety tells a story, like Vasavi's favorite nutty moong that reminds her of eating hot rice and kanji with her mother.

The Ripple Effect

What makes Podi Life special isn't just the product. It's about preserving culinary traditions and passing them between generations while building something meaningful together.

For Vasavi, the business validated decades of cooking expertise and kept her mother's legacy alive. For Alak, who grew up with podi as a constant even after moving to America at age 12, it connected her engineering background with her cultural roots in unexpected ways.

The brand serves Atlanta's South Asian diaspora, offering them authentic flavors that taste like the meals their own mothers and grandmothers made. Every jar carries the love and skill of multiple generations of home cooks who understood that comfort can be drizzled onto any dish.

Now this mother-daughter team proves that it's never too late to turn talent into purpose, and that the simplest family traditions can build bridges across continents.