So your love of cooking did it come from your from your father or where where did he first realize that you wanted to cook? >> So I would say love for cooking actually came from the family. So uh my family is a foodie family.
My grandfather was a baker. >> Uh it's during the time when British were still ruling India and uh Burma World War II started and Burma war was happening. So British summoned lot of bakers to come to East India.
They needed lot of bakers to come there. So that prisoners of war camp was there and allied armies were stationed there. They needed to be fed.
>> So that's how my granddad landed there. Uh mom and dad met in place called Jam Shepur. Uh the whole family became we we were born in Jamshapur.
Being a Punjabi family were born and bam Shepur. So I saw my granddad being a baker. Then my dad who was an engineer uh decided to become a caterer.
Uh and then I grew up around these two men who were hugely passionate about their craft >> and it was to an extent it was infectious. It wasn't possible not to be able to get affected by it and I did. So I was I was always on my granddad's tail and then my father's tail.
uh when it came to uh a time when I had to decide a career like a good Indian boy I sat for medical school and got a seat >> but I also sat for hotel school which I told my dad that I want to do this uh and I got a seat there as well and mom was an academic she was a little bit disappointed but was happy that I'm going to do something that I will love >> uh and I that's how I landed in hospitality and I one of the Best advice my dad and my mom gave me that you come from a Punjabi family, you were born in East India, why don't you go to South India and explore your own country, your own people and love something, learn something new. >> And uh I landed up Chennai, didn't know the language and didn't know anybody. Uh 17year-old boy >> uh with two suitcases, a trunk.
uh landed up there in hostile and never looked back to be honest. >> What did you learn from that move from going somewhere where they didn't speak the language? Um I know it's the same country but communication is important right because you feel a bit like an outsider.
What was that for you? >> It was like being in a foreign country. >> It it was a pleasant shock if I may say Jamshedpur is quite a cosmopolitan town.
So neighbors were from Orisa, Bengal, Gujarat, uh Mumbai, you name it. So growing up there all my life I thought yeah this is how world is. Then you suddenly land up in a place Chennai place called Madras not Chennai that time it was Madras and now Chennai everyone speaks Tamil everything is written in Tamil or English sometimes there's nothing in written Hindi uh and you have to adapt very quickly.
M >> uh even if you wanted a dozen of banana, you need to speak in tunnel to be able to get that. >> And I I got through that. I got through that.
But it it took some time for me to understand how diverse >> my country was, >> how beautiful this world was. People were amazing. They were very helpful.
Once once you got across the communication barrier, which I did over a period of time, I spoke fairly fluent Tamil when I was there. Uh the world was no different than wherever I had come from to be honest. They were same people felt like family.
I never wanted to leave Chennai. When it came to end of my education, I fell in love with the place with the people. Until date now their mom, dad are gone.
Uh loads of my friends are in Chennai. So whenever I think of India, uh I get goosebumps thinking about it that I've got family in Chennai. >> I've got nobody from my blood relation in Chennai.
All those friends who live in Chennai, they are more than family to me. >> What was interesting you talked about earlier is is your grandfather and I think that's something people don't really talk about enough in Indian culture especially the grandfather is like another father, right? So I look back at my family life.
I had all four grandparents are still alive until I was 30, right? Which is >> fantastic blessing >> of course >> a massive blessing. Um, and what they individually taught me has stay stayed with me.
What did what did your granddad teach you that your father couldn't teach you or didn't teach you? What did you find? There's a different type of relationship between the two of them because they both helped define you as a man today.
But I think they probably both taught you different things, right? >> They both taught me different things. No doubt about it.
So my my dad uh became an orphan at very young age. M uh so he was brought up by his uncle lovely family. So he had a lot of love and affection.
He never felt that he didn't have parents. So the granddad I'm talking he's my mom's dad. >> Yeah.
>> So for him he was father-in-law and they they had lovely relation between them but they were two different people. >> Uh my my granddad was super organized. Um bit temperamental.
Things didn't go his way he he will lose his cool. uh very pious. Uh his his god came before anything else.
His life always started with Shiva. >> Every every morning starts with Shiva only. >> And he he had his rituals and everybody had to respect those rituals around him and we all learned to do that.
But that taught me discipline. Uh how he had carved out a time frame from for himself. Uh every morning there was a ritual and he would just go minute by minute.
He had that very strictly till the time he was alive. He always followed that. Uh my dad was more rounded up, more fun person.
Spoke little but smiled a lot. Uh he was always there to give cuddles and cajolas. Uh no moment was a bad moment.
Uh positive remain remaining positive was the biggest thing for him. Uh perhaps he had seen so much in life that nothing faced him. He always remained that he was always a glass half full person.
And I think I got that a lot from him. So getting strength from two different people was amazing in my opinion. >> How do you think that impacted your mentality now?
Because happiness and positivity, it's a mindset. It's not based on what you have. Some of the richest people in the world are be, as we know, the most miserable.
True. So has that is that something that's stayed with you to this day? And how do you how do you maintain your mindset?
Because as soon as you've walked in, there's smiles, there's positivity, energy, you can feel it. What do you do to make sure you stay in that kind of mindset? >> I I think I wake up and my mind is buzzing.
I'm all happy that I'm alive. >> Got a new day. Got a new lease for today.
Uh I'm happy that there's a lot I can do today. Uh I'm going to meet some amazing people. Uh and hopefully I will try a little bit harder to be better person than I was yesterday.
>> Yeah. Uh I think those things keep me going. Rest is all ritual.
Going to work, meeting chefs, working with the team. They're all ritual. They're all happy rituals >> and they all have a rhythm to it.
Uh but remaining positive and looking at any situation and saying, "Okay, we can deal with this in a different way. It doesn't have to be head-on. There's always a way around it as well.
You need to look at that. " So, I've always been that kind of person and I think it's I can I can dedicate that to part of my upbringing. >> Do you carve out time for yourself in the day?
You speaking about your granddad does that. And it's funny, I I start my day with meditation as well because I think it's it's the it's a reset we need even though we've just slept. >> Yeah.
>> Like you said, you wake up and your mind goes right. And if you just follow that thought, sometimes you realize actually, >> you know, I need to just slow down a little bit if I start working straight away. Yeah, >> it's usually not the best thing.
So, do you is what's your mindfulness practice or how do you start your day? >> So, I'm an early riser. Always been.
My dad used to wake up 4:00 in the morning. >> Wow. >> And the next person he would wake up is me around 5:30 because he has made a cup of tea and he wants to share the cup of tea with someone.
So, it used to be me. So, I got that in me. So, I I'm always up around 6:00.
So, I've slipped another half an hour into my sleep schedule and I wake up around 600. I'm up at 6:00 and uh I I I have a ritual do my little stretching and listening to one or two podcasts which I love and then I put on my shoes and get out for walking. >> So I live near Oily Park and that's my ritual and that's my mindset.
>> Uh it it resets everything in me when I'm out there fresh air. Sometimes you come across a neighbor and you get talking to them and you talk totally different, no food, not his business, totally something, maybe geopolitics or something. >> Uh, and that keeps me going to be honest.
But just wake up in the morning and go for a walk. I think it just just the best thing I have in my life to be honest. And it actually it doesn't matter whether it was minus 3 or 30° in the morning, I would still go out for a walk.
And I have done that for many years and I continue to do that. >> Do you enjoy having time to yourself? Is it something that you savor?
>> I love it to be honest. So my my wife wakes up couple of hours later than me and I would love for her to come on the walks with me so that I can chat to her as well. But that's that's kind of me time.
Very selfish. I'm sorry. No, it's not.
So it just >> just clears my mind. You know, if there's something happened yesterday and had been bothering me, I process it. That's the time I I reset myself.
M >> uh what can I do? I can't do all the plants so to speak can be made and sometimes I have no thought at all and I'm just enjoying it. >> There's a new bud coming out and I saw those four ducks and they have a new duffling now.
This is fantastic. >> I notice all those things and >> you just feel that you are in tune with your environment. It's an environment which I come to every day to inspire and love and look after myself rather than them.
>> But I notice I notice the changes. >> That's quite interesting. So you've said it like it's an easy thing.
This is the awareness of the small details. A lot of people look way past that. They're out and they don't notice the beautiful little things around them.
They're more concentrating on their phone or they're caught up in their mind. The awareness that you have, is that something that you've trained yourself to actively do or is something that has always been like that with you? >> I I've never trained myself into it, but I think it's there >> and it could be part of my training.
Uh because being a chef, you're aware of your surroundings all the time. >> You notice everything that what's on the table, what's on the pass, what's on the stove. You're constantly managing that.
Maybe it's that I I'm until you told me this, I didn't notice, but it was my reset with the nature and I I noticed the new birds come out and I I'll come back tomorrow and see how big they become. And it's a very beautiful thing to actually observe because you see these things on camera that there's a little bud and then within seconds it opens up to be a flower. But it's a very beautiful feeling when you walk past every day and see it's grown a little, grown a little, grown a little.
And God forbid if somebody plucks that bud before I've seen it, bloss. I get irritated. >> Yeah.
Now they say that if you can if you can spot beauty in the little things, it shows where your mind and your heart is at because it means you're in that state of of consciousness of thinking where some people can easily look past it because they're so focused on maybe on things which are difficult or they're feeling anger or they're feeling pain. So they don't notice the beautiful things around them. But I just it's just an observation.
I've always when people ever tell me about stuff they notice in nature, I see it as a reflection of how they're feeling on the inside. Sometimes mine is too preoccupied for people and could be for me as well. Maybe a few things I also walk past and don't notice.
Uh but certain things that I get hooked on to, I notice that. >> Yeah.
