At 91, she started food business. 7 years later, she still makes tasty, home-cooked snacks. How one question helped the granny find her love for cooking again

It is never too late to give wings to your passion or start something new. You must have heard the phrase that age is just a number, but many still fail to find the confidence in themselves to believe the saying. Age can never be a barrier to letting go of your dreams, and this sentiment is proven by 98-year-old Prabhavati Bhagwati from Ahmedabad. With a deep love for cooking and finding joy in feeding others, she almost gave up on her hobby after a personal loss. But a simple question helped her get over the grief. Now, she is the proud founder of her own food business.

From loss to a new beginning

Prabhavati Bhagwati, fondly referred to as Prabhavati Nani, got married when she was just 22. She devoted her life to her family, spending 60 years raising her 3 aughters and granddaughters. But one thing that remained unchanged in all these years was her sheer love for cooking Gujrati dishes and feeding them to her loved ones, relatives, friends, and neighbours, reported The Better India.


Prabhavati Bhagwati loves trying out new recipes and offering them to people, just to watch their reaction to her meals. But when her husband passed away in 2017, she was left all alone with her daughters settled elsewhere and her grandchildren all grown up. With no one to cook for, Prabhavati’s passion was slowly fading away. As per her daughter Sonali, a vacuum was filling in her mother’s life until things changed for the better on a fateful day.

Cooking for everyone at 98

A friend of Sonali’s daughter asked Prabhavati Bhagwati to make khandvi, a type of savoury snack popular in Gujarat, for a party and even insisted on paying. That’s when an idea struck the granny. The small order led Prabhavati to launch Nani’s Nashta, a home-based catering business in 2018. She was 91 years old at that time. As per a video by The Better India, foodies not only loved her preparations but also felt a grandmother’s love while having the delicious Gujrati food.

At present, more than 200 families order food from Prabhavati Bhagwati, who views her customers not as clients but as children. ‘As long as I am alive, I will keep on cooking,’ she says in the video. As a founder, her daily routine involves cooking lip-smacking snacks in the kitchen before sunrise, checking every batch of food personally before giving it to customers and tasting the food herself before approving. Prabhavati’s advice to people finding a footing late in life? ‘Start at any age and change your life’.