His Michelin-starred restaurant in New York, Junoon, has a three-month waiting for weekends, but celebrity chef Vikas Khanna knows how to have an audience eating out of the palm of his hand too. At the recent Jaipur Literature Festival, he struck an instant chord with listeners as he regaled them with stories of his failures in life. But from a boy rolling chapattis at the langar of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, his hometown, to the celebrated chef, author and TV show host that he is today, Khanna has several successes to boast about too. Only, he is rather modest about them all, attributing it all to luck and coincidence.
Khanna recalls how it was also a chance meeting, with the Dalai Lama, which proved to be a turning point in his life. Going through a low phase following a string of failed ventures, Khanna happened to be at a venue in the US where His Holiness was present. As he was passing through the crowd, the Dalai Lama touched Khanna?s head and blessed him, saying, ?new beginnings to you?. After that Khanna went on to open Junoon and the rest, to use a cliche, is history.
Incidentally, Khanna?s new book, Return to the Rivers?Recipes and Memories of the Himalayan River Valleys, has a foreword by His Holiness, where he writes that Khanna has presented a whole new celebration of the people of the Himalayas.
The book is a result of Khanna?s travels through Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Kashmir and Ladakh in an ?attempt to find himself?. The end result is a trove of anecdotes, recipes and some candid photographs of life in the mountains, clicked by Khanna.
Khanna travelled through these regions by road for months during his years of initial struggle. He says experiencing life sans technology and comforts of a city gave him perspective that he cherishes. He used this revelation of a simple life in his cooking at Junoon, where, he says, he cooks food that reminds people of home. For instance, he points out that bhindi and tinda are big on the menu, while India?s best culinary export, chicken tikka masala, is absent.
As Khanna holds the book high for us to see, he emphasises that he does not want to do inconsequential stuff. ?Doesn?t this book look as if it?s written by a Nigella Lawson or a Jamie Oliver?? he half asks, half hopes. Yes, it does.
While his celebrity status might not have rubbed in on Khanna, a guy who has been counted among the sexiest men alive and America?s hottest chef, and one who is going to rub shoulders with Michelle Obama soon after a US tour of his book, needs no ratification.
But then Khanna does not take success for granted. From maintaining his physique (pure branding; personality and ventures go hand in hand, he says, on being asked how a Punjabi, and a chef at that, is so thin) to asking everyone to pray for his latest endeavours, he is trying hard every day to sustain his status.
Currently hosting a show for Fox Traveller, Twist of Taste, Khanna travelled to several locations along the Indian coast to shoot for the show. Any scepticism on a Punjabi giving a twist to coastal cuisine he dismisses with a reminder that he trained at Manipal, where he developed a love for the cuisine. Here too, while he asks to be wished well for the show, he reveals how his family first thought he was shooting for an ?animal? channel when he told them about Fox Traveller. Doing his talking from the heart, which is mainly in Punjabi, he insists his cooking also comes from the heart, without which he feels no chef can be a good one.