How Pickled Veggie Saved This Family

When crises happen, you basically have two choices – give up and accept defeat or rise to the challenge. This is a story of one woman who stared back at the crisis she was facing, and triumphed. In the process, she became a home based business owner and saved her family.

Lakshmi was a simple, unassuming Indian woman. She was a stay-at-home mother with four small children. While her husband worked as a construction supervisor, she would take care of the home and her four children. Her life was routinely ordinary and she had simple dreams for her children – to make sure her children were educated and got good jobs. Life though had other plans for Lakshmi and her children.

Tragedy struck one day when Lakshmi’s husband was hit by a lorry on a busy street and died instantly. Lakshmi was in a state of shock even as she took care of the funeral arrangements. The day after her husband was cremated, she sat her children down and told them, “Papa is gone, but I am here. Things will be difficult for a while, but Mama will take care of everything, I will always be here for you”. She said those words to comfort her children, but in her heart, Lakshmi was in a state of panic. The money her husband left her would only last a few months. She had to find a source of income soon.

A relative suggested that while she looked for some sort of work, Lakshmi could try and sell her pickled vegetables to earn some extra money. Lakshmi’s delicious pickled veggie was as popular with her friends and neighbours as it was with her family. Lakshmi was doubtful, but with little choice left, she agreed. She asked her neighbours if they would be interested in buying some of her pickled veggie. They readily agreed, so the next day, Lakshmi cooked up a batch of her pickled veggie and sold it to four families. Two of the families asked if she would cook a batch of pickled veggie for them every week. Lakshmi agreed even though she wondered if they were doing it out of pity for her.

As Lakshmi looked for full-time work, she continued to supply families with her pickled veggie. Word of her delicious pickled veggie reached the local grocery store and they called her to ask if she would consider supplying them with her pickled veggie. This was more than Lakshmi had hoped for. More and more shops began asking her to supply them with her pickled veggie and soon, finding a job was no longer on Lakshmi’s list of priorities. She had other problems to deal with – how to increase production of her now famous pickled veggie and how to meet supply deadlines!

Five years after Lakshmi was thrown into the sea of crisis, she had triumphed over adversity and was a genuine successful home-based business owner. When asked why she chose to remain home-based and not to expand her business, she answered simply, “I made a promise to my children that I would always be there for them”. Her home-based business enabled her to fund her children’s university education and to provide them with a comfortable living.

Like Lakshmi, many people are “accidental” home-based business owners. When crisis rears it’s ugly and frightful head, they are forced to rely on the one thing that they are naturally good at. For Lakshmi, it was her pickled veggie, for you it may be something equally simple and seemingly insignificant. For the rest of us, there is a lesson to be learnt from Lakshmi – that success doesn’t have to depend on being highly qualified and skilled. Sometimes, all you need is to do the one thing that you know, with all your heart, as if your life depended on it! Here’s to finding that one thing that will make you a success. Cheers!