Finding the Silver Linings In Family and Food

Lockdown Diaries by Neelam Seolekar

From Finland to Poona and everywhere else in between, Neelam Seolekar – MD The O Hotels – takes you through her pandemic journey. There’s always a silver lining, she says, and by the grace of God, she found two!

My husband and I were in Finland at the end of Feb with a group of friends. We were to travel further to London where Kunaal, our younger son, was to join us on his way to Milan. He was exhibiting at 2020 Milan Furniture Fair in preparation for the big international design fair little aware of the fact that COVID-19 was, by now, on the rise in a few cities in Europe.

We called him that Sunday, Feb2 3, as he was about to leave for the airport, when he broke the news of Milan getting rapidly effected with COVID cases, asking us to check with friends in Milan whether the news was accurate and should he be boarding the flight in these conditions.However, with all calls made to and fro, being a Sunday, it was just impossible to actually gauge the reality of the situation for sure. His tickets and booking could not be cancelled as per the airline clause but what mattered most was his safety. Next day we took our flight to London from Rovaniemi. Everything around seemed so normal at the ever so busy airports.

Our one-week stay in London was great as usual with no effects of cases in Italy spilling over. Life went on as normal as could be. Kunaal was most disappointed with me for not being allowed to travel to Milan. He kept cribbing about the losses-money, time and backlog, as friends in Milan kept saying all was fine and the media was simply overhyping the situation.
We left London for Delhi via Helsinki which was the scheduled route. And we got home on March 2. All appeared fine, with no sign of anything COVID, neither any special safety measures to follow. Looking back at the situation today, it turned out to be the wisest decision we had ever made, thanking our good fortune and counting our blessings, to have caught the situation in time. The thought of what could have been is a nightmare till date! What if the pandemic had hit a week later or Kunaal would have travelled a couple of days earlier? Little did we know that this was just the beginning of what we all have been experiencing in this never-ending pandemic.

The situation in Milan was gradually getting worse. On March 11, WHO officially declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, as it spread to more than a hundred countries rapidly.
Poona, however still seemed to be doing fine. We thought things would be alright here as studies showed the virus seemed to only attack colder climates. By that, Poona should still be safe till mid-March. I had two book-launch events with one of my authors coming in from Chandigarh and another from Bombay. We still had a good audience turnout for both events at The O Hotel.

Bombay’s cases were on the rise and a few were seen in Poona simultaneously.Eventually, cancellation of rooms and banquet functions started coming in by the end of March, followed by cancellation of big events worldwide. We got official news from Italy of the furniture fair being postponed. All these were the first bitter blows to the travel and hospitality industry and since then the market has changed drastically. As a lot of business is done with corporate travels and banquets, this was the moment when everybody sensed that the situation was now getting serious. A week later, all of Europe faced border closures and travel restrictions with several airlines. Hotels were among the first to feel this disastrous impact.
With the axe finally coming down with our PM‘s announcement of a 21-day national lockdown from March 25, this harsh new reality led to a shock and a kind of depression set in.
At the hotel, my first reaction was to start cutting frills.

Additional contracted staff and extravagant travel allowances were the first. Some of our outstation staff managed to leave in time to go home, though few were stuck here with really not much work on hand. We stopped all sales visits due to the risks of exposure. Just as well as corporates, too, had started closing down. Our long-stay international guests were called back to their homes on emergency flights which were arranged by their respective nations.
And life at the hotel came to a standstill by the first week of April.

Even before the major shutdown in our country, I had cleared my desk and kept all vendor cheques signed and ready. I tried cancelling the usual scheduled orders.
We paid our March and April salaries, which in these trying times was great. Thank God we could! We took in cancellations as they came in and refunded advances. This was where our leadership and crisis management skills stood the test and showed value to my team. Solidarity, human health and well-being of my team, guests and colleagues, was of utmost importance.

April was all about attending various webinars. We would listen to financial experts, hoteliers, industrialists and government officials on how to handle the crisis, downsize, adapt to the new normal, seek new opportunities, safety measures, health precautions, standard of operation changes, etc. This went on till May.

However, by mid-April, a great thing happened to me and that was the launch of my blog. In a complete lockdown and with plenty of time between meetings, I got down to work on my long promised travel and foodblog: the_bluepepper_net and started documenting on April 15.
All the fresh organic produce coming in daily every morning was a result of the efforts ploughed into my backgarden over the years. This now turned out to be a real boon, getting fresh vegetables and milk, which were scarce and unavailable during lockdown, and served as an inspiration for this blog.

COVID-19 definitely made me reconnect me with my first love – food! The amount of time I’ve spent in the kitchen cooking and baking, specially in the initial months, is unbelievable. The satisfaction of preparing food and feeding people, stranded labourers at our sites, staff members and their families… A big thanks to my hubby, Anil, as he, too, started investing his time with such keen interest, an otherwise impossible thought to even imagine! What started off as our little back garden is today a mini farm.

Still, a kind of restlessness and loss of confidence in not only staff members but also myself started creeping in. By the end of May, with a partial relief in travel allowance and the hotel still in lockdown, I started to empower all my culinary team members. Thus, began my inter-departmental training for all the speciality kitchens.

The Japanese, Italian, South Indian and pâtisserie sections all were involved in my mission. We pulled out the most popular dishes from our menus, worked on a limited sustainable menu in keeping with lesser inventory in ratio to demand, training staff to work with fewer team members, thus teaching them to multitask.As a result of this we can now operate the kitchen with a lesser number of staff and hopefully sustain the COVID crisis. There was a short period, which ran through almost the whole of July and August, where we had to shift our training programme home due to a few of our staff getting COVID!

Through it all, The O Hotels in Poona and Goa finally opened their doors in July to accommodate overseas travellers during their quarantine stays. This was on government approval with all safety standards and precautions in place. This involved another set of training sessions to accommodate the new normal that is now protocol in the industry. This includes catering special “14 days quarantine packages” for the stranded people headed back on special flights.

Unfortunately, within 10 days of that brief opening, we had to close down as we had a couple of positive cases in the accounts department, slowly leading to a total of 16 staff members getting affected. All of us had to undergo tests, and one of my IT managers almost lost his life and was hospitalised for more than a month. This was a rather traumatic period for us all in the company.

Things got back to a bit of normalcy in August. Staff started coming in with utmost precaution after a thorough sanitisation of the entire property and a Ganesh puja. In September we ventured to Goa, bringing along my Japanese and Italian master chefs to do the training with my Goa hotel staff and learn from them their Goan and Portuguese cuisine.  

Now, I have not just gone back to the basics, but rediscovered my roots and passions. I certainly feel much more fulfilled as a person inspite of these trying and crucial times. The time spent with my family, my children and grandchildren has been the most satisfying.
From baking birthday cakes along with all the party food for the in-house celebrations such as my grandson, Shaun’s birthday and my mother-in-law’s 93rd! We had almost six birthdays in this period!

While Shaun is one, my granddaughter, Serena, is two years and 10 months. I taught them the five elements of nature, right from planting seeds to watching them give fruit. We witnessed our cow giving birth on a full moon day, thus naming the calf Purnima! I taught them traditional rituals during the Ganesh puja, the traditional food made during festivals, served in a special thali. To me, it felt like history repeating itself with my grandparents.

Coming from an agricultural and business background with plenty of produce from our farms and estates, we were ingrained with the need to share our feed! My grandfather was one of those old-time politicians, who only believed in giving and thus, growing up in this environment, that became the most powerful lesson I unknowingly gathered.

With the lockdown and my routine work at a standstill, I got all the time to finally live my dreams. The back garden is now extended into a well-organised multi-acre farm, growing our daily basics and more. We not only grow green leafy vegetables like spinach and dill, but even exotics like broccoli, zucchini, bok choy, all kinds of herbs and salads, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, brinjals, okra, pumpkins and gourds! With this, we have thankfully been able to generate employment to our jobless staff.

Though the lockdown led to a situation of famine for many, we were able to feed not only our home staff and their families but even the hotel staff and stranded construction labourers who had to be moved to our construction sites for safety measures from containment areas.
We not only shared organic produce and milk with relatives and neighbours but also our gourmet food and dessert coming out from our experimental practice kitchens.

I’m ever so thankful for the experiences and knowledge that this lockdown has bestowed upon me and my team. There were challenges for me, just like everyone else in the lockdown, but ultimately, the silver linings showed through. The opportunity to enjoy some wonderful organic, clean eating, and my family trip to Goa were definitely two such.

And I’m treasuring these blessings!

Sharing some of these recipes for you to try at home! Click on the picture below for the complete recipe