The Cookery Queen
The Cookery Queen
She cooks just as great as she looks! Draped in chiffon with a dazzling smile and rich culinary skills she inherited from her mum, Amrita Raichand is a star!
Text & Photographs: Farzana Contractor
Watching Amrita, as she meticulously fussed over a splendid dining table, all dressed and loaded with Rajasthani delicacies, two things struck me simultaneously; the way she cooks and the way she looks, especially in these delicate chiffon saris. “Oh my God, really?” she exclaims. “Well, I learnt to do both from my mum and I can’t begin to tell you how great a cook she is! And yes, it was she who taught me how to perfectly drape a sari, too. In fact I am so comfortable in one, I could be wearing jeans!” Now, that’s something, I am impressed. It’s not a feat I manage well personally, tripping along as I do whenever I wear one!
Amrita Raichand, nee, Saluja has had an eventful life. And she owes much to her mum, Prakash Kaur for the beautiful childhood and support during her growing up years. It couldn’t have been easy, for life had struck the Saluja family a strong arrow. Amrita’s dad was just 39 and she was merely three and a half years old when they lost him to a massive heart attack. Softly, she comments, “It’s uncanny, but dad may have had a foresight… he was so keen that she continued to study further, even after marriage which she did, MA in Economics. That plus, he made sure she went for gourmet classes, both of which held her and us, my two brothers and I, in good stead. She is a hardcore sardarni, a sherni who gave us a great upbringing and everything we could ever need in life.”
Like she says, they hail from a happy and hearty Sardar and Punjabi family, all of whom loved eating good food. Her dad, Harilal Saluja especially. He was not only particular about what he ate but how it was served, so they all learnt all these nuances from early on. However, Amrita’s bigger influence came from her maternal side. Nani, nana, mama and mamis. It’s a family which was based in Lahore (that itself explains the love of food), which shifted, lock, stock and barrel during the Partition, to Hazaribagh in Bihar, now Jharkhand. A street in Haribal is named after her grandfather; Sardar Angad Singh Hora.
“Yes, I have many happy memories from when I was a little girl. Of Lalaji (grandpa) and Pabboji (grandma). Lalaji always carried a pocket knife with which he would cut fruits and feed us, then give us a chavanni to go buy sweets. And Pabboji would educate us about Partition and tell us amazing food stories as well. Achar making was her favourite pastime. She always said, when cooking food, taste at every stage. Also, Pabboji’s other nugget was, ‘Feed your husband well, it is the only way of keeping him happy.’ My mummy followed that advice! And I do too, so I guess Rahul must be a happy man!” says a beaming Amrita.
From the days when her mother baked dollhouse cakes for her, Amrita had gotten into the act, too. She loved being in the kitchen. She cooked her first surprise meal for her mum when she was eight; aloobhurji and tamatar chutney. She had her neighbour come in and help her light the stove. This was in Jamshedpur, where she was born and grew up, while her mum worked at Tisco, where her dad had worked, too.
Says Amrita, “Look, the beauty of cooking is always in its simplicity, is something I have learnt. Whenever I am in doubt and want to double check my mum’s recipes I just call up one of my three maasis who live in Dhanbad, Patna and Hazaribagh. The signature dish at our house was saaggosht.”
Amrita went to school at Mount Carmel in Dhanbad, going on to do her 11th and 12th at Lawrence School in Sanawar, the snowy hills of Himachal Pradesh. Then for ‘a better life’ they all came to Bombay where Amrita went to St. Xavier’s and did a double major in Economics and Commerce. An enthusiastic kid, Amrita pursued extra-curricular activities with a passion. Dramatics, dance, Kathak and also Bharatnatyam, which she practised for 16 years. Her two brothers, Rajesh and Deepak, bright boys, had already got good jobs in wealth management and investment banking. Soon, in 1996 Amrita was ‘spotted’ by OBM, the big ad agency and got a break in modelling. She was the face for Whirlpool for years. Pepsodent, Clinic, Dabur, Ponds, Colgate, Nivea were among the 100 brands she represented over a decade. There was only one condition that was put forth by her responsible and caring brothers. No Bollywood and no TV serials. But that embargo came only after she had essayed roles in Yash Chopra’s, Humko Ishq ne Mara and Time Bomb 9/11 and movies such as Ready with Salman Khan, Baat Ban Gayi with Gulshan Grover and Ali Fazal and Subhash Ghai’s Baaghi.
In between all this, given Amrita’s love for cooking, she also managed to convert the living room of her mother’s apartment into a studio, where she would cook and shoot videos to her heart’s desire. This was in 2019.
However, the phase I found most fascinating was when the time for marriage came along. “Believe it or not, it was an ‘arranged’ marriage,” she confesses. It was Veena Malhotra, a Bombay society hostess who saw Amrita at a party and got the two respected mums together. Subsequently Amrita and Rahul met, in the winter of 2002, and went out to lunch at Gaylord, but it didn’t quite click. Says Amrita, “I had a checklist in my mind regarding how my in-laws had to be. And though they were so good, so cultured, I found myself hesitating. I got cold feet, I think.”
Understandably Rahul’s ego was hurt more than a bit. Here he was, a khandani boy, with royalty links, (his mum is associated with the Baroda royalty) Mayo College and Oxford Brookes, educated MBA guy, so cool, so well-spoken, being rejected… Already attracted to Amrita, he decided to woo, not the future bride, but the future ma-in-law! He called her and invited himself over for a ‘cuppa tea’. He met her not once but four times!
By now Amrita’s ma was quite fond of Rahul and told Amrita in no uncertain terms that she must decide soon, meaning she should say yes! So, once again Amrita found herself in Rahul’s company, this time at Bombay Gym where she met his friends from Mayo and had an immensely good time. She found she liked Rahul and his friends. Later, the same day, they landed up at the US Club, where, guess what, he proposed to her!
The marriage was a whirlwind affair. They were wed, within months, bang in the middle of the wettest of monsoons. Been 23 years since but it has never rained in their lives again! Touch wood.
Rahul Raichand is a seriously happy man. A sports enthusiast, who has played professional football, been a rugby champ, Rahul has been responsible in conceptualising and organising many events in India related to football, cricket, cycling. But he has given it all up now, (saying he has had enough of living out of a suitcase), to concentrate on his family business, which is related to the chemical industry.
When asked what describes him best, he humorously says, “Amrita’s husband!” And then goes on to let me know, in two words what drove him nuts about her and why he chose to marry her. “Her smile.” Rahul is of the opinion that anyone who has her kind of infectious smile has to have a super heart and a great nature. “Amrita is all that and more. But I must tell you a funny anecdote. You know when I was proposing to her, I told her, ‘I may not be able to buy you the biggest diamonds in the world or the most expensive cars or the largest of mansions, or take you on ridiculous holidays or…’ she interrupted me and asked, ‘… Really, so what can I expect?’ and I smiled and continued… ‘But I do promise you a lifetime of laughter!’” Aww... that’s so sweet I said to him and asked if Amrita was floored by that. He laughs, “Yes! But I did manage to throw in memorable holidays and she does have my mum’s lovely old jewellery!” And she laughs a lot!
Rahul proved to be a good husband too. Broadminded and confident as he was, Rahul was fine with Amrita continuing with her modelling career, which she did many years after. But she voluntarily gave it up once her son Agastya was born in 2007. However, her other passion, cooking, which was always Amrita’s forte, took centre-stage. She was in possession of handwritten recipe books of both her mother and mother-in-law which she studiously went through, selecting and cooking from those recipes as well as recipes from Roshan Chagla’s Recipes From My Kitchen which was her mum’s go-to cookbook. Her mum encouraged her enormously to pursue a career in the food business.
“Look, it was the most natural thing to do. I was married into a family where for every meal there had to be five or six dishes on the table. It was very, very different for me, but it was enriching to be exposed to this plethora of food. So I started leaning more and more in that direction and before I knew it I was totally immersed in all things food!”
“With a son growing up quickly, I was pretty involved in subjects such as, ‘How to cook for your child’, when a TV offer came my way. Mummy Ka Magic happened when Agastya must have been three or four. I agreed to it and within 10 days we had shot 13 episodes at Film City, shooting three episodes on some days!” says Amrita, who has probably never taken a break in her life, but gone on and on, one phase to another.
From anchoring TV shows to judging food shows, from being a brand ambassador, to receiving various awards including one from the Indian government as Cultural Ambassador of Food in India, to doing Ted Talks on why it is important to allow a child to eat what the child wants to eat, how the equation between child and food is important, Amrita has pretty much covered the gamut!
Knowledge and the process of learning must go on and Amrita found time to pursue culinary arts by going to Singapore to do an advanced culinary course at At-Sunrice Global Chef Academy. She also did an online certification course in Gastronomy and Nutrition from Le Cordon Bleu, to enhance her ability to understand nuances of a growing trend; healthy eating. “True, you know, I wanted to turn every meal of a child into a healthy experience without making it boring,” she enlightens. Agastya is 17 now, yet Amrita concentrates on being a mum, first.
What turned things around for this super mum and super cook was when the world was plunged into a deep abyss called the COVID. When we were all locked indoors and the only distraction we had was food and the room we spent the most time in was the kitchen. Those who had never cooked and now had to, suddenly discovered the joy of cooking. But they needed help, assistance, and know-how… Ta daaa… enter Amrita Raichand. She folded up her sleeves and got down and dirty. Cooking away and then making amateur videos of what she had cooked and posting them immediately. Guiding women and men, too, I guess, on how to cook this, that and the other. And she became a rage! People started following her on Instagram, YouTube, etc. Today she has a following of over half a million and she can’t stop smiling.
So, where is she at these days? Currently she is engaged in Mere Ghar Ka Khana, Beyond The Plate, on Radio One, every Monday, 8.15 to 9 a.m. She hosts on Instagram and YouTube various shows such as Mummy Ka Magic, Thoda Aur Magic, Bites And Beyond. She has her own YouTube channel called Being Amrita, which presents all that she stands for and goes beyond being a chef and a model. She has also signed up with an international company which puts out Thrive, an app which has different genres of people from around the world making food. So with Amrita, it’s ‘learn to cook Indian food!’
As for the written word, though Amrita has in the past written columns such as Stay Yummy and so on, she hasn’t got down to writing a book… Pray, why? When everyone these days seems to be doing just that! “You know,” she says with a resigned look, hunching her shoulders, “I am just not into having someone ghost-write for me, when I am ready, I will do it!”
Quite sure you will, Amrita, that will be a culmination of your culinary career, prophesies UpperCrust.