�I'm a good cook when I have time. I take cooking classes wherever I go. I've done Cordon Bleu in London when I was 15. I'm passionate and interested in food, I read history, study techniques, collect cookery books. I get pleasure in assembling a sandwich, joy in planning a dinner for one to 15!�

IF Priya Paul were not to be the president of Apeejay Surendra Hotels, which have a Park five-star property in Calcutta, Delhi and Vishakapatnam, she would have been a chef. Yes, she fits the mould perfectly. Talking food comes naturally, talking hotels comes naturally too, but food is easier. "I was interested in cooking from young," she says. I always enjoyed cooking, was always pottering in the kitchen. I'm a good cook when I have time. I take cooking classes wherever I go. I've done Cordon Bleu in London when I was 15. I'm passionate and interested in food, I read history, study techniques, collect cookery books. I get pleasure in assembling a sandwich, joy in planning a dinner for one to 15!"

In her hotels, naturally, Priya has control of all menus. When new menus are being drawn up, she claims to drive her kitchen staff crazy. "I make suggestions all the time and give them feedback," she explains. "I like to keep control of quality. We have good restaurants, but more important, they serve good food." The hotels are her father's legacy to her and her sister and brother. She studied economics in Wellesley College of the US, came back, and became her father's marketing manager at The Park in New Delhi. When he died suddenly in 1990, the hotel had no general manager, so Priya played the role. From then till now, she rose up the ladder to become director and now president of the hotel group.

"My task was to consolidate as a business, rework as a group, renovate and reposition the three Park properties as a collection of boutique hotels through good design and a new product," she says. And she started in 1992 with the flagship hotel, The Park in Calcutta's Park Street. Priya redesigned the rooms, introduced an oriental restaurant called Zen that served Thai, Malaysian, Japanese flavours, brought in a bar called Tantra that was a night club with band, but which also served lunch.

"People said in terms of cuisine and decor, we had gone out of the ordinary, it did not look like a normal hotel, we were more design-driven, the atmosphere was not like that of a hotel you were in yesterday. I told my team at Park, 'Hell, let's be immature, let the marketing catch-up!' Likewise in Delhi. I had the guts to believe that you evolve all the time, needs and tastes change."

And now Priya Paul and Apeejay Surendra Hotels is building Park hotels in Bangalore and Chennai too. She would love to do one in Bombay too and, in fact, has the location for a good three or four-star hotel in this city. She's got the legendary English furniture-maker and designer, Sir Terrence Conran, involved in her projects and is hell-bent on making her chain of luxury boutique hotels stylish and fun, rather than formal.

"We want to be hip and happening," Priya admits with a disarming smile. "My strategy has been to gravitate towards a more contemporary look for my hotels but with a relaxed feel. It's about giving individual space to guests. After all, guests come to the hotel to relax and enjoy, so we try to create an atmosphere where they can do just that. But there are no concessions in hospitality and service."

Her days are driven by hard work, but she manages to get a lot of fun out of it too. She's based in Delhi, but divides her time, travels to Calcutta, Bangalore and Chennai equally.

The family business is vast. From hotels to shipping and from real estate to tea. She runs the hotels and restaurants and does everything, from designing a new project to the finance and marketing work. "You're recreating dreams," she says, "Just when you think you've created the perfect X,Y,Z dream, you find your tastes and ideas have evolved, and you go beyond that to yet another dream." She chills out by partying Saturday nights at her own night clubs with friends, or going out. "My staff have learnt to let me do my own thing,� she says. And she travels abroad for vacations. "It's important to find a balance," she says. "This year I took a break and visited the Kumbh Mela!"