JIGGS Kalra is the father of all Indian foodies. Of that I have no doubt. In the 1970s, when it was not even so fashionable to go eating out, he used to be doing restaurant reviews and stories on reclusive gourmets for the Evening News of India and the Illustrated Weekly. When he gave up a full-time career in journalism to become a food consultant and writer, Jiggs moved to Delhi. But twice of thrice a year, he always returned to Bombay to host a food festival at The Oberoi. It was on these occasions that I used to meet him and dine on the food he ordered for me from the menus he had created.

I will always like to remember Jiggs as a blustery, boisterous Sardarji, impeccably dressed in Ritu Beri kurta-pajamas and colourful turbans he designed himself, a spring in his step, mischief dancing in his eyes. And, when he was not walking-talking food, telling the most ridiculous and bawdy jokes hilariously well. But a year and half ago one winter morning, Jiggs suffered a stroke that rendered him paralysed on the left side and deprived him of the power of his fluent speech and the jaunty step in his walk. He was confined to a wheelchair with drooping hands and legs and slurring speech. And gone was the kurta-pajama, in its place, Jiggs wore a track suit. The turban, over which he cried when he found he could not tie it anymore, was replaced by a baseball cap.

I had met him over breakfast one Sunday at the Delhi Gymkhana, and Jiggs, who had to be wheeled in, told me, �What the Lord taketh away, he giveth with the other hand.� He was most upbeat about his condition. He ordered breakfast for me from the Gymkhana menu, then ticked off the waiters for not sticking to his original order, cancelled it, and ordered all over again. As blustery as ever. �I believe this engine of mine is in shunting,� he had said from the wheelchair, �and when it takes off, it will go like the Silver Streak.� Having struggled to load him in and out of the car on the way to the Gymkhana, I thought this was most unlikely. But then Jiggs is a spirited man. No amount of setbacks can put such people down.

And soon enough, he was back in Bombay, this time at the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel and Convention Centre in Powai, helping them to set up their Indian restaurant Nawab Sahib. Jiggs had come over with a his team of consultants, eight chefs, and his heir apparent, Marut Sikka. I met him for breakfast, again, at the Renaissance. He was as extravagant as ever, ordering a Spanish omelette for me, stuffed with bacon and cheese. While he fed himself with the white of poached eggs and coffee. His life has changed somewhat for the better. Exercise on the treadmill, physiotherapy, plus 60 stroke-related tablets every day for blood pressure, diabetes, stomach acidity, sleep, to stay awake, has brought about the change. He's not yet the Silver Streak, but well on the way to becoming it.

Over breakfast, while he was taking his fix of tablets, I told Jiggs that the only other person I knew about who popped over 60 pills a day was Sylvester Stallone. �I should open a company with him, maybe a chemist shop, naam se chelenga,� he joked. Then he told me about how the Lord that had taketh away, had also giveth back with the other hand. Since the time he had returned from the hospital after recovering from his stroke, he had done two books, helped to open three restaurants, held nine food festivals from Delhi to Calcutta, become the brand ambassador for Basmati rice, travelled overseas with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Malayasia and organised his meals, planned the banquet at Agra's Jaypee Palace Hotel for President Pervez Musharraf, catered the food for Pramod Mahajan's daughter's wedding and Sushma Swaraj's daughter's 18th birthday, and was back on Jet Airways as the food caterer. �All this for a man who is only half a man,� Jiggs chortled. �People tell me I have achieved more from the bed than if I had been walking around. I don't agree.�

I didn't, too, because I know what a force Jiggs can be when he is on his feet and poking around the kitchen of some restaurant chivvying the chefs to do his bidding. �I am restless, it is my willpower, my spirit that drives me on,� Jiggs explained. And he told me about the Renaissance's Nawab Sahib. �It is an Indian restaurant with a difference. Through it, I plan to bring out the varied cuisine experiences of India. Lucknow, Sindhudurg, Kashmir, Mewar, Mysore. The menu will change ever quarter. And each quarter will feature two distinct gharanas. I'm starting with Punjab and the Marwar. Food from the kitchens of Maharana Ranjit Singh, the only man to have captured and ruled Kabul, and whose culinary canvas extended from Peshawar to Amritsar. And the food of the Rajput kingdom, inspired by the rich cuisine of the Rajputs, the vegetarian fare of the Maheshwari traders and also the local food of the Moghalia school.�

Jiggs and his team of food consultants and chefs is truly an outfit of uppercrust caterers. I suggested he must be on the top of the heap for big international hotel chains to hire him to set up new restaurants for them. �Our catering is the highest of the highest standard,� he said. �We transfer our technology to a hotel, or a restaurant, train their staff for a short period, fit the place out with my own chefs, then keep our fingers crossed! Show me a picture of a western dish and in ten minutes, I will reproduce it for you with Indian ingredients. I don't borrow recipes or ideas from Indian or foreign books. Nor from chefs. My recipes are my own. They get stolen, my chefs get stolen, but I am happy, I have no secrets.� And that's the way a confident and content man should be. I asked Jiggs what he dreamed about the most. �I want to open Indian restaurants on both side of the pond,� he replied, grinning from in between the beard and moustache. �One in London and one in New York. Certainly it will happen. The Man in the sky with the big umbrella, I leave it up to him.� Will he giveth?