The Hindu Business Line : Hot from Jiggs’ kitchen

He waits at the lobby of Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore, and an infectious smile plays on his lips from the minute he realises you are walking towards him. And on recognising a long-lost friend accompanying you, he greets him with a big hug and an excited “Arre yaar, kaisa hai?” But never once does he show the pain or discomfort of being confined to a wheelchair, due to a stroke he suffered almost 10 years ago.

“I am a Taurus-Gemini cusp. When I get into the Taurus mode, nothing on earth can shake me. But the Gemini in me lets me do 10 things at a time. That’s why I had this stroke,” he says, pointing to his head.

“‘Bash on regardless’, was what Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw told his troops at the battlefront. And when I met him as a war correspondent for Illustrated Weekly, I asked him what his advice would be for a 21-year-old rookie journalist, he said the same thing — ‘Bash on regardless’ — and that is what I do till date,” says J. Inder Singh Kalra, popularly known as Jiggs Kalra, the celebrated gastronome, writer and food consultant.

“I am the most outrageous flirt after my guru Khushwant Singh,” he says, as we settle down for a talk.

Even before you can recover from those words, he comes up with this: “I have a fetish for dark women… I find their complexion and hair special.” Turning to one of the restaurant staff, he adds, “You should have Manipuri women at the restaurant. They are very beautiful.”

From war to kitchen

Quiz him on his life’s journey and Kalra recalls his days as a journalist when Khushwant Singh made him a war correspondent because he was “a fauji’s son”. It was Singh who taught him how to write. “He had the vision to identify stars; so many people have learned from him,” he says with admiration.

He prides himself on writing “the second-largest cover story — 19 pages — for Illustrated Weekly, when Khushwant Singh asked me to do a story on the hotels in India”; this gave him an opportunity to travel the country’s length and breadth.

A surprise offer from Evening News of India turned him into a food columnist, reviewing the “affordable eateries” in Mumbai. “I even got a wonderful logo done by Mario Miranda for me, I sit on six Mario originals. I won’t part with them… come what may,” he says.

Referring to his food writings, he recalls how Singh had described him as “the tastemaker to the nation” and, later, the “Connoisseur of Indian cuisine” and “Tsar of Indian Food”.

“I would give an arm and leg for such endorsement from my guru,” he adds. His first book, Prashad — Cooking with Indian Masters, has sold six million copies so far.

His interest in food came from his parents, Kalra says. “My father could tell the vintage of the ghee by just smelling it.

And my mom is my icon as far as cooking is concerned.” Although his father was not happy with his decision to venture into food today “it makes me happy when young women tell me that my book Prashad saved their marriage.”

Restaurant maker

His next tryst with destiny happened when the Maharana of Mewar asked him to find a chef, “which I did. Then he wanted me to get him an F&B manager, then a general manager, and a housekeeper too! When I got him all of these, he said, ‘Take care of the restaurant at Shiv Niwas too.’ Willy-nilly I got into the restaurant business,” he recalls.

Working with some of the finest hotel chains in India also brought him several memorable experiences.

He fondly remembers how Princess Diana had complimented him for the Rose and Cardamom Kulfi he had specially created for her during her visit to India with Prince Charles. When she died a few months later, he recalls “sitting in front of the TV all night and crying”.

Another feather in his cap is the return banquet the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee hosted for his Malaysian counterpart in Kuala Lumpur.

Today, Kalra is the Chairman and Managing Director of Bawarchi Tolla, a hotel and restaurant consulting company, and a Managing Partner for Fusion Flavours, which creates flavours for brands such as Frito Lay and MTR.

Bawarchi Tolla’s work includes The Great Kebab Factory at the Radisson, New Delhi; Singh Sahib at the Park Royal, New Delhi; The Kandahar restaurants at Oberoi hotels across the country; and Aangan at the Hyatt, New Delhi.

The company also puts together food festivals at five-star hotels such as the recently held Hyderabadi Food Festival at Citrus, the continental restaurant at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore.

Veggies too

Kalra is passionate about introducing vegetarian menus. “Any hotel’s menu would have 70 per cent non-vegetarian. For vegetarians, there would be only mushrooms, paneer and potatoes,” he says. So, each time he works on a food festival, he gets one chef to learn all the vegetarian recipes in that cuisine. “Vegetarian food takes a lot of effort for a chef,” he adds. This thinking also led him to conceptualise the menu for Moksh, an all-vegetarian, pan-Indian restaurant at The Chancery, Bangalore.

All the recipes in his columns are original, Kalra says, adding that he even weighs the ingredients on an electronic weighing machine to ensure they are accurate.

Kalra has a contract for 100 books, “of which I have written only 44. He has spent a long time on his pet project — mapping the cuisines of India “where I write not the recipes, but also the legends and lore associated with food and festival food for that region”, he explains.

He is thrilled with his induction into the Gourmet Hall of Fame. “I am the only Asian there, and I don’t need anything more,” he signs off.

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