Her all-natural biscuits have got woofs and purrs of appreciation

"Biskoot bai" is what people have begun to call Vijaya Nanaware. She quite likes the name, she says with a grin. Vijaya, a domestic help and housekeeper with a Pashan family, makes and sells dog biscuits. Ask her what goes into them, and she'll only say: "all good and pure things". She may not know the words 'patent' and 'trade secret' - but she's not in a hurry to tell you her recipe!

A dog lover herself, Vijaya works in a household that's always had dogs. A year ago, her employer found a recipe for dog biscuits. Intrigued by it, Vijaya decided to try it out, using the family dogs as her 'test market'. The response was overwhelming. Both dogs and a couple of neighbouring cats began to "hang around the oven as soon as they got the baking aroma," she says. And once the batch of biscuits was out of the oven, they were over in a day! She experimented with shapes at first, using cookie cutters, even making some of them bone-shaped, but finally settled on the bread stick shape, as they give the dog or cat something to grip and chew on.

Vijaya would make a kilo of biscuits every week, for home consumption. Soon, pet-owning neighbours and friends of the family began to ask for a few, and reported that their pets wanted more, and could Vijaya make them on order? Vijaya checked with her employers, and they were only too happy to let her pursue this 'side-business' as she proudly calls it.

Now she had to come up with a name, figure out how much it cost to make a kilo of biscuits, and how they should be priced. Hesitant at first, she was encouraged by her employers to simply sit down and do the math! Which she did - methodically weighing, noting cost price of each ingredient, and coming up with a selling price that was both profitable and reasonable. She bought zip-lock bags, made small 200 gm packets, and sold the first batch to neighbours. And the name of her biscuits: the simple and recognizable, Biskoot!

Soon more orders began to come in. Vijaya neatly juggles her daily duties with the biscuit-making, and now plans to buy an oven for her own home, so that her daughters can make them too. During this Diwali, while the rest of the city was busy making chaklis and karanjis, Vijaya was busy making Biskoot!

On Thursdays, when the electricity supply is iffy, she does her market round - buying eggs, five different flours, chicken for the soup-stock. ("Arrey, I've almost told you the recipe," she laughs!) Does she plan to go big, we ask? "Not if I have to put in any of those chemicals and flavourings and colouring and use machines to make them," she says firmly. Meanwhile, one of her daughters has declared that next year, when she turns 18, she's going to get a driving license, and drive a van that ferries school children in the mornings and delivers Biskoot to customers in the evenings!

Biskoot is available at Rs. 32 for a 200 gm packet at: PETcetera, Natasha Enclave, N.I.B.M. Road, Phone: 98220 56059. PetsWorld, Shop No. 50-56, Amba Bazar, M.G. Road Phone: 4014160. Or leave a message and your number for Vijaya at 22951577.

Anandi