At Lake View Road in Madipakkam, the couple open the shop every evening
Visitors to Madipakkam Lake View Road are so accustomed to the sight of Prabhu L. and Priya Prabhu sitting along the lake front with their snack varieties spread on the pavement that their absence even for a day would trigger a chain of enquiries.
For the last seven years, almost every day from 4.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m., this couple, both persons with locomotor disabilities, run their modest business. And they are rich from having accumulated loyal customers.
Prabhu and Priya’s story is one of supporting each other. Prabhu had been a telephone operator in Dharmapuri and held other jobs in metros before quitting from Sutherland Global Services in Chennai to help Priya become a homepreneur.
“’What after me?’ was a question haunting me for long and I wanted to empower Priya to do something that lay within her abilities. She had only studied till Class X and needed someone to back her fully,” says Prabhu, who has a postgraduate degree in computer applications.
In 2007, they brought home an oil-extracting machine and started selling cold pressed oil. When summer set in they started making avakai pickles and slowly expanded to sell apalams, vadams and other snacks.
They started by selling savouries outside temples in Madipakkam, each day dedicated to one area. Later, they expanded the scope of their business by choosing Lake View Road and it turned out to be taslismaic to them. Many walkers started taking note of the way they went about doing their business to help them.
TRV Rajan of Techcom Solutions helped him start the venture. A number of people have given the couple stalls at exhibitions free of cost including V. R. Muralidharan, president of TAMBRAS Velachery; and Keerthi Vasan Iyer from Agraharam Group.
The couple are also grateful for the support received from Sumathi Raghuraman, Radha Sethuraman, Brindha Subbarao and Vijayalakshmi Sreeram.
“We started Madipakkam Rao Home Foods with an initial investment of ₹ 10,000 and we have now come a long way with the support of many well wishers,” says Prabhu, grateful to his school group for the help extended to them.
Priya too is happy to have learnt the ropes of running a business and being financially independent. She says, “During the pandemic we did struggle a lot. My son would help us in delivering items sought by customers at their doorsteps.”
Contact Prabhu at 9500064260
Published – July 05, 2026 10:30 pm IST
