I think you’re constantly learning and I
learned about three minutes ago that
when you wear a microphone like this the
other part is attached to your back
which makes it very awkward to sit so if
any of you ever give a public lecture
make sure you know how the microphones
work when I sort of got invited to
deliver this talk I was sort of thinking
about several ideas of how I could make
it interesting for all of you and then I
thought I must tell you the most
important story that you’ll ever hear
it’s about finding the best biryani in
India and really think about your
current status in life you’re always
hungry I grew up in a Bengali Punjabi
household where at breakfast we spoke
about lunch at lunch we discussed
evening tea and once tea was done my
mother would look at me and say what do
you want for dinner beautiful childhood
now but five years ago I was happily
settled and living in London you might
have heard that I’m a huge Arsenal fan
I’m sorry if someone doesn’t like
Arsenal it’s most of India because all
of you support a club called Manchester
United but at Arsenal I often found out
that the most important things in life
are things you have to hold on to and
things you love so I was sort of
thinking and deciding what I should do
with my future because I spent four and
a half years working as an investment
banker which if you’re not good at
mathematics is not a great career choice
I was terrible at math until date use a
calculator even if it is counting how
many days in a month needs to be added
up from a next holiday terrible at math
and I had nothing to do with the Wall
Street Crash of 2007 several friends
have accused me of it I did not add an
extra zero here and there so when I
decided to move back to India the first
question that I had for myself is what
do I love what is it that I’m most
passionate about what drives me and this
journey led me to understanding that the
real value in human life is to explore
yourself so I went and took up a
research fellowship to live in the
villages of U P and B hard to begin with
great choices stunning scenery
incredible food options
most significant villages where you
walked around holding a mobile phone
like this looking for network and then
something surreal happened I was in a
small village outside of Nepal driving
back middle of the night scary night no
lights on the highway listening to
terrible songs of Govinda on the radio
my driver Lalaji should have been in an
f1 driver but chose to drive me around
Madhya Pradesh while I was there quietly
sort of drifting into the night an IT
Help was sitting in the back and across
from you as you can see here was another
car and with no lights I suddenly look
around and I see this these two
headlights coming at me and literally
coming at me and they hit us and Alka
had a terrible accident in fact the
bonnet came up against the windscreen
and the other car flipped and flew into
a ditch in that one moment you asked
yourself are you alive but who’s going
to tell you whether you’re alive or not
because everybody else around you
senseless there is zero life around you
now for those of you that have travelled
and have traveled with your eyes wide
open and not looking at your mobile
phones you will notice that most of
India has little temples on roadsides
and Street sides and wherever you travel
you see these ironically there was a
little temple there so I would do what
Amitabh Bachchan would do in the
Bollywood movies go and ring the bell
and literally said arch the birth go
get’em very dramatic but I’d never
experienced death Sonia I stood there
and I questioned am i alive and I asked
myself again and I looked around me no
one to talk to and then something
incredible happened
well you’d imagine there’s a Dairy Milk
sign here I went my left pocket and I
took a bite of a Dairy Milk Bar and I
tasted nostalgia and I tasted my
favorite chocolate bar and I said thank
you God with chocolate you let me know
that I breathe it’s very important for
me at that moment to realize that food
plays a very very important part in my
life this me in a graphic form of course
if you see around it you’ll see
different religions and growing up in
India my god
religion is everything but for me
religion meant food so I became friends
with all the Muslim kids in my class
because I wanted biryani and then I
realized I were to a Christian school so
I found some Christian kids because over
Christmas Rose tasted fantastic and
that’s how my friendships first began
and what I started doing finishing other
peoples different boxes let me tell you
the greatest relationships in life are
built around those people who enjoy food
as much as you do and make sure your
friends who bring good Tiffin make sure
you meet them in the first period the
chances are you won’t last past the
third so I went hunting for different
boxes I was that kid who paid no
attention to geometry I was that kid who
smelt who’s brought what the Maharani
kids would bring such incredible
breakfasts oh my god and then you’d find
that occasionally that the Chinese kids
would bring noodles and fried rice and I
had it for like Tiffin I mean if I
didn’t beat them to it and then this
classroom became my understanding of
India who brought what who eats what
meat who doesn’t eat what meat it’s very
simple because we grew up around these
constant questions of is India secular
and now we live in an India where we
question the government questions
whether you can eat a certain meat or
not
but I grew up in Calcutta a cities so
completely crazy that all we thought
about was food our relationships our
friendships whether you went to
someone’s marriage the first question
would be who’s getting married
no know who’s catering so there I am let
me tell you the little kid you see is me
you know why I’m smiling because I
become friends with the waiters simple
rule when you go to an Indian wedding
carry a few 50 rupee notes first for
waiters you see now master buyer kai
saeho purchase okay and let’s supply
fresh food the best because you can
imagine will come to your plate forget
the bride and groom you become the focus
so I then thought when I grew up I
should know how to cook and also know
where the camera is because I’m the only
one looking at smiling
incident that’s my father trying to cook
something for us and I started learning
at a very young age the importance of
knowing how to make good food because
two things will happen you make friends
and you definitely fall in love with
someone who appreciates your cooking so
let me give you this little example when
I came back I literally spent one year
traveling the length and breadth of
India trying to ask a very simple
question of myself where do you find the
best biryani now being from Calcutta I’m
gonna be very biased when I tell you
that the best biryani in India is
available in Calcutta and it’s only
because this is life-changing by the way
if any of you been to Calcutta you’ll
know that the Calcutta biryani has a
very important ingredient very difficult
to find a potato and that potato changes
the entire taste of the Pirie on e it
just it makes you feel like you’re the
king of the world you walk in to a
Shiraz or hamana
the waiter says the lamb sub granular
and you’re sitting there nothing bothers
you you’ve had a fight in school it
doesn’t matter you failed in math again
great order extra plate and you started
realizing that the most inherent quality
within ourselves is for our mind to be
at peace is our ability to be happy with
one another but if you’re not happy with
yourself it’s very difficult to be happy
with the world around you so whenever I
find myself in a spot of bother or
trouble I try and find myself a villa
Brioni so when I travelled across India
I realized that we’re uniformed as a
nation we’re so similar the way we think
the way we support certain teams we
support in their cricket we love tennis
we love hockey everything to do with
India is us but when it comes to the
food we eat our tastes are different our
palates are different our wants and our
desires are different so a Hyderabadi
will tell you that you get the best
Briana in Hyderabad don’t listen to them
you move towards Lucknow good because
Letner has an ax body touch and you
travel around India and different
formations of rice and meat are called
different things you go to Kashmir and
it’s
Nakula you go to muradabad and see
Mirada body pulao but just look at the
steeple
and you know what a lot of our food
culture came from the Middle East where
pilaf is actually an Iranian word and
the chelo kabab which is one of the most
famous things you need in Calcutta came
from Iran so for me to understand
history I think about food I think about
recipes I think about people hundreds
and thousands of years sitting in a room
saying put in a little bit of green
chilli will taste better it wasn’t five
people in 1997 that came together and
said let’s have KFC there was someone
many years ago I said fried chicken will
work put the chicken into the film so at
all points in time my question always is
chase what you love I chase biryani
cheese whatever it is you like you like
physics you like maths this obviously I
hope not too many if you do but if you
do good luck but the whole idea is fine
what you love and my fav one of my
favorite writers and poets or someone
called Charles Bukowski and he said find
what you love and let it kill you in
India we let everything else kill us
about what we love so let’s not become
another case study of a generation of
people who chase dreams and aspirations
of other people I when I quit banking
and I quit a sort of lucrative job to
come back to India I had no idea what I
wanted to do I knew that I could follow
Aslan on the Internet which was a relief
because since they never win I don’t
follow that much now and the number four
is become permanent with me for those
who that for football you’ll get it for
those who don’t please never support
this football team and sort of I I
wanted to chase what I love but no one
told me what you love no one ever asks
what you love they always ask what you
want to do you will go to school and
they’ll talk to you about college you go
to college and then talk to God work and
you will go to work that so when do you
retire my question is when do you start
living and so then I started traveling
around India and I started hunting for
recipes and conversations and people and
food and somewhere along the way in this
journey of thinking I am going to change
the world
the one person who changed the most was
me because everyone around me started
talking to me to either telling me
stories started spending time with and
most importantly they fed me
now this is an interesting graphic this
was me sitting and trying to figure out
how farming in India works and let me
tell you something you know the first
time that I actively went to a village
is quite funny actually
well now funny but back then quite scary
there were three people chasing three
people with swords straight out of a
Bollywood film and I stood there
wondering what’s happening they were
rehearsing for a play but for me it
looked like they were going to kill each
other and I would have talked to them
and I would walk around the village just
trying to have a conversation but no one
had the time you know why because for
farmers and people that work in rural
spaces results are overnight if they’re
in the farm today they have to send
something to the market tomorrow to put
food on the table and really understand
India to understand the intricacies to
understand how delicate our country is
be it politics religion race creed
background whatever it is go to a
village and you will see how much of
India still exists the ideal Indian our
heads are found in villages and I asked
one person I remember when I was leaving
was very emotional thing bye to everyone
and it was almost like you know I just
got married and this was my bday or
something and the whole village came out
and I was in a bullock cart going to a
railway station bizarre surreal strange
never do it again and I’m standing there
and this man looks at me and says when
will you meet me again and I said when
you come and see me in the city and you
know what he said I’ll never come to a
city and I said why he said because
people they expect you to buy a bottle
of water they will not give it to you
and this journey of biryani took me all
over and I found my friends over little
tea stalls and nooks and corners of
different cities and villages across
India and the joke in the villages would
be chai wallah ah ha ha not the Prime
Minister me and I would literally buy
cups of tea for people because people
wouldn’t make time for you because they
were working they were busy children
weren’t going to school so on weekends
it was literally spending time teaching
kids the most basic things I tried not
teaching maths but I had to for little
while but let’s say that they’re safe
and they’re doing well but the idea was
what can you do to make a difference how
far can you go to make a difference we
keep wanting in electing governments but
remember the power that you have
didn’t you is enough to make change so a
chai wallah kept spreading some chai
love no lattes in anything very simple
masala choice across India and I began
to grow up that’s me again understanding
religion different time different space
confusion what is religion simple now
you see it kebabs rajma chawal tandoori
chicken van stock and roast remember
easy simple thoughts understand things
at your own level
don’t let the ideas and influences of
others ever come in the way of your own
judgment remember definitions created
have been created because of the
convenience of others build your own
definitions ask the right questions now
let me tell you this this is the most
important part of this talk and this is
very important as then when you decide
to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend or
to get married make sure you find
someone who orders his or her own fries
fries weren’t ever created to be shared
it’s written in the Bible check it out
it’s not I’m joking
before some fundamentalist group comes
after me the idea of finding love is an
idea that’s always been distant and when
I was growing up everyone sort of
romanticized love they romanticized the
feeling of being in love the only love I
had before I found my fiance was
probably tandoori chicken and it would
disappear the moment dinner was done so
it was very very short lasted and
there’s a very important message that I
wanted all of you to know today that is
life is best lived in its simplest forms
always remember that if you don’t like
to study something if you’re scared
about something walk away walk towards
what is calling out to you for me that
was food I grew up in a generation where
they said if you didn’t study science
you’re just stupid
you got commerce because you couldn’t
get science and we said in humanities my
god you must have failed everything
that’s the world we lived in so as I
started growing older I just wanted to
chase and chase and chase what I loved
and I quit this life in London and
everything that people thought no my
parents is he okay mentally he’s fine
and I told my parents as I’m coming back
to find love and sadly maybe my
girlfriend does support now fiance
supports Manchester United but you
overlook that and he said people make
mistakes but you know what she orders
her own fries and I’m really glad that I
can build a home and a family with
someone who loves food as much as I do
because I wasn’t built to eat lettuce
for dinner
so remember this and this above all that
your time as Walt Whitman would say
happiness not in another place but this
place not for another earth but this are
so remember what Walt Whitman said and
remember what I’ve told you today don’t
take advice from everyone advice comes
for free take what you think works for
you each one of you sitting in this
audience here and each one of them that
are watching this video at some point
will realize your biggest power is the
uniqueness within you believe in you
love yourself be happy give back and
overall I hope in this lifetime you find
the best biryani god bless you and thank
you very much
[Applause]
learned about three minutes ago that
when you wear a microphone like this the
other part is attached to your back
which makes it very awkward to sit so if
any of you ever give a public lecture
make sure you know how the microphones
work when I sort of got invited to
deliver this talk I was sort of thinking
about several ideas of how I could make
it interesting for all of you and then I
thought I must tell you the most
important story that you’ll ever hear
it’s about finding the best biryani in
India and really think about your
current status in life you’re always
hungry I grew up in a Bengali Punjabi
household where at breakfast we spoke
about lunch at lunch we discussed
evening tea and once tea was done my
mother would look at me and say what do
you want for dinner beautiful childhood
now but five years ago I was happily
settled and living in London you might
have heard that I’m a huge Arsenal fan
I’m sorry if someone doesn’t like
Arsenal it’s most of India because all
of you support a club called Manchester
United but at Arsenal I often found out
that the most important things in life
are things you have to hold on to and
things you love so I was sort of
thinking and deciding what I should do
with my future because I spent four and
a half years working as an investment
banker which if you’re not good at
mathematics is not a great career choice
I was terrible at math until date use a
calculator even if it is counting how
many days in a month needs to be added
up from a next holiday terrible at math
and I had nothing to do with the Wall
Street Crash of 2007 several friends
have accused me of it I did not add an
extra zero here and there so when I
decided to move back to India the first
question that I had for myself is what
do I love what is it that I’m most
passionate about what drives me and this
journey led me to understanding that the
real value in human life is to explore
yourself so I went and took up a
research fellowship to live in the
villages of U P and B hard to begin with
great choices stunning scenery
incredible food options
most significant villages where you
walked around holding a mobile phone
like this looking for network and then
something surreal happened I was in a
small village outside of Nepal driving
back middle of the night scary night no
lights on the highway listening to
terrible songs of Govinda on the radio
my driver Lalaji should have been in an
f1 driver but chose to drive me around
Madhya Pradesh while I was there quietly
sort of drifting into the night an IT
Help was sitting in the back and across
from you as you can see here was another
car and with no lights I suddenly look
around and I see this these two
headlights coming at me and literally
coming at me and they hit us and Alka
had a terrible accident in fact the
bonnet came up against the windscreen
and the other car flipped and flew into
a ditch in that one moment you asked
yourself are you alive but who’s going
to tell you whether you’re alive or not
because everybody else around you
senseless there is zero life around you
now for those of you that have travelled
and have traveled with your eyes wide
open and not looking at your mobile
phones you will notice that most of
India has little temples on roadsides
and Street sides and wherever you travel
you see these ironically there was a
little temple there so I would do what
Amitabh Bachchan would do in the
Bollywood movies go and ring the bell
and literally said arch the birth go
get’em very dramatic but I’d never
experienced death Sonia I stood there
and I questioned am i alive and I asked
myself again and I looked around me no
one to talk to and then something
incredible happened
well you’d imagine there’s a Dairy Milk
sign here I went my left pocket and I
took a bite of a Dairy Milk Bar and I
tasted nostalgia and I tasted my
favorite chocolate bar and I said thank
you God with chocolate you let me know
that I breathe it’s very important for
me at that moment to realize that food
plays a very very important part in my
life this me in a graphic form of course
if you see around it you’ll see
different religions and growing up in
India my god
religion is everything but for me
religion meant food so I became friends
with all the Muslim kids in my class
because I wanted biryani and then I
realized I were to a Christian school so
I found some Christian kids because over
Christmas Rose tasted fantastic and
that’s how my friendships first began
and what I started doing finishing other
peoples different boxes let me tell you
the greatest relationships in life are
built around those people who enjoy food
as much as you do and make sure your
friends who bring good Tiffin make sure
you meet them in the first period the
chances are you won’t last past the
third so I went hunting for different
boxes I was that kid who paid no
attention to geometry I was that kid who
smelt who’s brought what the Maharani
kids would bring such incredible
breakfasts oh my god and then you’d find
that occasionally that the Chinese kids
would bring noodles and fried rice and I
had it for like Tiffin I mean if I
didn’t beat them to it and then this
classroom became my understanding of
India who brought what who eats what
meat who doesn’t eat what meat it’s very
simple because we grew up around these
constant questions of is India secular
and now we live in an India where we
question the government questions
whether you can eat a certain meat or
not
but I grew up in Calcutta a cities so
completely crazy that all we thought
about was food our relationships our
friendships whether you went to
someone’s marriage the first question
would be who’s getting married
no know who’s catering so there I am let
me tell you the little kid you see is me
you know why I’m smiling because I
become friends with the waiters simple
rule when you go to an Indian wedding
carry a few 50 rupee notes first for
waiters you see now master buyer kai
saeho purchase okay and let’s supply
fresh food the best because you can
imagine will come to your plate forget
the bride and groom you become the focus
so I then thought when I grew up I
should know how to cook and also know
where the camera is because I’m the only
one looking at smiling
incident that’s my father trying to cook
something for us and I started learning
at a very young age the importance of
knowing how to make good food because
two things will happen you make friends
and you definitely fall in love with
someone who appreciates your cooking so
let me give you this little example when
I came back I literally spent one year
traveling the length and breadth of
India trying to ask a very simple
question of myself where do you find the
best biryani now being from Calcutta I’m
gonna be very biased when I tell you
that the best biryani in India is
available in Calcutta and it’s only
because this is life-changing by the way
if any of you been to Calcutta you’ll
know that the Calcutta biryani has a
very important ingredient very difficult
to find a potato and that potato changes
the entire taste of the Pirie on e it
just it makes you feel like you’re the
king of the world you walk in to a
Shiraz or hamana
the waiter says the lamb sub granular
and you’re sitting there nothing bothers
you you’ve had a fight in school it
doesn’t matter you failed in math again
great order extra plate and you started
realizing that the most inherent quality
within ourselves is for our mind to be
at peace is our ability to be happy with
one another but if you’re not happy with
yourself it’s very difficult to be happy
with the world around you so whenever I
find myself in a spot of bother or
trouble I try and find myself a villa
Brioni so when I travelled across India
I realized that we’re uniformed as a
nation we’re so similar the way we think
the way we support certain teams we
support in their cricket we love tennis
we love hockey everything to do with
India is us but when it comes to the
food we eat our tastes are different our
palates are different our wants and our
desires are different so a Hyderabadi
will tell you that you get the best
Briana in Hyderabad don’t listen to them
you move towards Lucknow good because
Letner has an ax body touch and you
travel around India and different
formations of rice and meat are called
different things you go to Kashmir and
it’s
Nakula you go to muradabad and see
Mirada body pulao but just look at the
steeple
and you know what a lot of our food
culture came from the Middle East where
pilaf is actually an Iranian word and
the chelo kabab which is one of the most
famous things you need in Calcutta came
from Iran so for me to understand
history I think about food I think about
recipes I think about people hundreds
and thousands of years sitting in a room
saying put in a little bit of green
chilli will taste better it wasn’t five
people in 1997 that came together and
said let’s have KFC there was someone
many years ago I said fried chicken will
work put the chicken into the film so at
all points in time my question always is
chase what you love I chase biryani
cheese whatever it is you like you like
physics you like maths this obviously I
hope not too many if you do but if you
do good luck but the whole idea is fine
what you love and my fav one of my
favorite writers and poets or someone
called Charles Bukowski and he said find
what you love and let it kill you in
India we let everything else kill us
about what we love so let’s not become
another case study of a generation of
people who chase dreams and aspirations
of other people I when I quit banking
and I quit a sort of lucrative job to
come back to India I had no idea what I
wanted to do I knew that I could follow
Aslan on the Internet which was a relief
because since they never win I don’t
follow that much now and the number four
is become permanent with me for those
who that for football you’ll get it for
those who don’t please never support
this football team and sort of I I
wanted to chase what I love but no one
told me what you love no one ever asks
what you love they always ask what you
want to do you will go to school and
they’ll talk to you about college you go
to college and then talk to God work and
you will go to work that so when do you
retire my question is when do you start
living and so then I started traveling
around India and I started hunting for
recipes and conversations and people and
food and somewhere along the way in this
journey of thinking I am going to change
the world
the one person who changed the most was
me because everyone around me started
talking to me to either telling me
stories started spending time with and
most importantly they fed me
now this is an interesting graphic this
was me sitting and trying to figure out
how farming in India works and let me
tell you something you know the first
time that I actively went to a village
is quite funny actually
well now funny but back then quite scary
there were three people chasing three
people with swords straight out of a
Bollywood film and I stood there
wondering what’s happening they were
rehearsing for a play but for me it
looked like they were going to kill each
other and I would have talked to them
and I would walk around the village just
trying to have a conversation but no one
had the time you know why because for
farmers and people that work in rural
spaces results are overnight if they’re
in the farm today they have to send
something to the market tomorrow to put
food on the table and really understand
India to understand the intricacies to
understand how delicate our country is
be it politics religion race creed
background whatever it is go to a
village and you will see how much of
India still exists the ideal Indian our
heads are found in villages and I asked
one person I remember when I was leaving
was very emotional thing bye to everyone
and it was almost like you know I just
got married and this was my bday or
something and the whole village came out
and I was in a bullock cart going to a
railway station bizarre surreal strange
never do it again and I’m standing there
and this man looks at me and says when
will you meet me again and I said when
you come and see me in the city and you
know what he said I’ll never come to a
city and I said why he said because
people they expect you to buy a bottle
of water they will not give it to you
and this journey of biryani took me all
over and I found my friends over little
tea stalls and nooks and corners of
different cities and villages across
India and the joke in the villages would
be chai wallah ah ha ha not the Prime
Minister me and I would literally buy
cups of tea for people because people
wouldn’t make time for you because they
were working they were busy children
weren’t going to school so on weekends
it was literally spending time teaching
kids the most basic things I tried not
teaching maths but I had to for little
while but let’s say that they’re safe
and they’re doing well but the idea was
what can you do to make a difference how
far can you go to make a difference we
keep wanting in electing governments but
remember the power that you have
didn’t you is enough to make change so a
chai wallah kept spreading some chai
love no lattes in anything very simple
masala choice across India and I began
to grow up that’s me again understanding
religion different time different space
confusion what is religion simple now
you see it kebabs rajma chawal tandoori
chicken van stock and roast remember
easy simple thoughts understand things
at your own level
don’t let the ideas and influences of
others ever come in the way of your own
judgment remember definitions created
have been created because of the
convenience of others build your own
definitions ask the right questions now
let me tell you this this is the most
important part of this talk and this is
very important as then when you decide
to find a boyfriend or a girlfriend or
to get married make sure you find
someone who orders his or her own fries
fries weren’t ever created to be shared
it’s written in the Bible check it out
it’s not I’m joking
before some fundamentalist group comes
after me the idea of finding love is an
idea that’s always been distant and when
I was growing up everyone sort of
romanticized love they romanticized the
feeling of being in love the only love I
had before I found my fiance was
probably tandoori chicken and it would
disappear the moment dinner was done so
it was very very short lasted and
there’s a very important message that I
wanted all of you to know today that is
life is best lived in its simplest forms
always remember that if you don’t like
to study something if you’re scared
about something walk away walk towards
what is calling out to you for me that
was food I grew up in a generation where
they said if you didn’t study science
you’re just stupid
you got commerce because you couldn’t
get science and we said in humanities my
god you must have failed everything
that’s the world we lived in so as I
started growing older I just wanted to
chase and chase and chase what I loved
and I quit this life in London and
everything that people thought no my
parents is he okay mentally he’s fine
and I told my parents as I’m coming back
to find love and sadly maybe my
girlfriend does support now fiance
supports Manchester United but you
overlook that and he said people make
mistakes but you know what she orders
her own fries and I’m really glad that I
can build a home and a family with
someone who loves food as much as I do
because I wasn’t built to eat lettuce
for dinner
so remember this and this above all that
your time as Walt Whitman would say
happiness not in another place but this
place not for another earth but this are
so remember what Walt Whitman said and
remember what I’ve told you today don’t
take advice from everyone advice comes
for free take what you think works for
you each one of you sitting in this
audience here and each one of them that
are watching this video at some point
will realize your biggest power is the
uniqueness within you believe in you
love yourself be happy give back and
overall I hope in this lifetime you find
the best biryani god bless you and thank
you very much
[Applause]
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