With the ever-increasing demands on the lives of Indian Americans both professionally and personally, some busy professionals are utilizing the services of Indian women who will cook and deliver home-cooked Indian meals to your doorstep. Lalita Aloor Amuthan takes the lid off the tiffin box in this story about the women who run these home-based businesses.

"Vegetarian Meals: White rice, Sambar or Vata kulambu (Pepper gravy), Veg Poriyal, Curd, Appalam, Pickle. - $7. Non Vegetarian Meals: Chappati (2), Chicken biriyani, Raitha, Egg curry. - $10. We deliver food within 5 miles free."

The above advertisement in different variations is a common sight in the classified sections of various desi Web sites in cities all over the U.S. A concept not that common in the metro cities of India, this new trend of Indian home-cooked meals delivered to your doorstep, however, seems to be a thriving business in the Indian marketplace in the U.S.

Who exactly do these businesses cater to? And who are these caterers?

"Bachelors and working couples form the bulk of my clientele," says Neeta Jotwani of New Jersey, who has been providing home-cooked meals for the past three years. What started out as a small service to friends and neighbors grew through word-of-mouth to a larger client base.

While the profits are not large enough to warrant a full-grown business model, Jotwani is happy making the little she does by doing what she loves most. Besides, having come to this country on an H-4 dependent visa, a visa status that does not permit one to work, she really doesn't have too many other options to make money. Catering from home gives her an avenue to make some cash and help out with the household expenses.

And it works just as well for her clients, too. Asha Tripathy and her husband Varun are investment bankers working in New York. Their high-profile, demanding jobs coupled with the daily train commute to their home in suburban New Jersey leaves them with not enough kitchen time. They don't quite fancy eating out on a daily basis either. They heard about Jotwani through a common friend and have been regular clients since, picking up a choice of vegetarian meals daily on their way back from work.

"I definitely see this as a long-term solution. We are planning on having a family shortly and there's no way I can find the time to cook on a daily basis with the babies around," Tripathy tells Indian Life & Style.

Another set of clients for whom this service has been a blessing is the slew of Indian bachelors who continuously enter the country for work. Never having entered a kitchen all their life and used to getting food served on the table back home in India, they actively scout the market for similar services once they come to the U.S. "I'd do anything to avoid cooking," says Vishal Keswani, who works in New York and has been in the U.S. for six months.

"I like to mix it up. I eat out a few days of the week and then I have home-cooked food delivered to my apartment the remaining days, so that way I am eating healthy some of the time at least," adds Rakesh Shreshtha, a software consultant working in the San Francisco Bay area, who searched the Web and found a home-based tiffin service in his area through Craigslist.com.

Another popular Web site, Sulekha.com, is where Preety Kaur, a home caterer based in the San Francisco Bay area, got the idea for her business. Inspired by the ads she saw of other women running similar businesses, she decided to give it a shot herself and posted her own advertisement on the site two months ago. Since then she has been on her toes keeping up with her customers' needs. She even posts regular feedback forms for her customers and improvises her menu accordingly to stay ahead of the competition.

So, are home-made tiffin meals going to replace traditional cooking patterns that form such an integral part of Indian life? Not according to Pooja Rai, a working mother in Jacksonville, Florida, who tried the tiffin service in her area but wasn't too impressed.

"There isn't too much variety and it can get monotonous after a while. Besides, it can never be the same as when you cook for your own family ensuring that all the right ingredients are used." She adds that while it can get really tiring after a hard day's work to cook for the family, at the end of the day it is worth the effort. So while she prefers to outsource the cleaning and other household help, she takes care of the cooking herself.

Although the financials aren't available for public consumption, a part-timer can rake in approximately $50 per day, even in the very early stages of the business. This is $1,500 a month and is the small-end scale of the business. Estimates are that $3,000 monthly can be made once business picks up. The real big numbers come into play only when these home cooks start catering to parties and group events, which many of them tend to do once business increases.

Shaila Naik, a software consultant in Boston, Mass., says she tried the home catering business while she was on leave for a few months to care for her kids, as she figured it might be an extra source of income. "It kept me busy and was fun in the beginning; I also made a bit of money, but not enough to substantiate doing it on a fulltime basis," she says. She plans to quit providing the service and resume work as a software consultant next month. She adds that she didn't really advertise a whole lot, but catered to local friends and acquaintances who wanted the service.

While home catering may not suit everybody's palate or budget, there is still an entire market out there for whom the existence of such a service is nothing short of a blessing; and the closest they can get to experiencing the flavors of home away from home.

Sukumar Reddy, who lives and works in the Bay area, sums it up: "I can get home-cooked Hyderabadi food delivered to my doorstep in California, what more can I ask?"

DO YOU MANAGE HOLDING A FULL-TIME JOB AND STILL WANT HOME COOKED FOOD? HOW DO YOU MANAGE IT? HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY? EMAIL YOUR THOUGHTS TO US AT INFO@INDIANLIFEANDSTYLE.COM.