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Hello, my name is Tian-Tian He and I'm interviewing Ms. uh, Anita Jaisinghani for the Houston Asian American Archive. Uh, today is October 11th, 2019.

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Um, so just to start, uh, could you tell me when and where you were born? I was born in Kutch, Mandvi, which is a town in Gujarat, India, on June 28th,

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1961. Okay. Uh, so and I read that your mother and father are originally from Pakistan. Well, yes, there’s—technically that' s wrong because they were—at the time they

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were from a province that was a part of India and then it became—Pakistan was created in nineteen forty—seven, and they used to live there, pre-”that”. So they moved to India when India and Pakistan were—India was split up into different, you know, regions.

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Mhm. Uh, so do you know why they decided to move? And how was the moving process for them? Very painful, it was a migration of almost—almost a million people died. So in 1947 when the

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British government were there, along with the other Indian leaders, decided to uh, separate the Muslim… a region from—for a Muslim majority country, which was going to be run by Jinnah, who was the—became the prime minister

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of Pakistan, the first prime minister. And um, everybody—so the province of Sindh, which is where my parents are from, so I'm a Sindhi. That province is entirely in um, uh, Pakistan.

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So when India and Pakistan, when they drew the line as to where they would separate India and Pakistan, um, the entire province of Sindh was left in Pakistan area and all the Hindu Sindhis uh, felt they were— their lives were in danger, so they start to migrate.

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And a lot of the Muslims in India began to migrate to Pakistan, but overall, there is a lot more, uh, there's—there’s very few Hindus left in Pakistan. But there's a lot of Muslims in India.

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Okay. Um, so did they have to basically leave everyone they knew? And they couldn't even take any—they basically just they had to leave the properties that they owned, the businesses they had, you know, established.

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It all had to just basically, lock your doors and walk out. And they got onto trains and you know, planes and buses and how people were killed at the airports and at the um, train stations. It was kind of a massacre of people that happened

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at the time. So, yeah… My parents are lucky to escape. Yeah. Um, and did they talk about it, uh like during childhood? Yeah, not very much. People in India or I think parts of Asia don't like to express that.

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For them it was a very hush-hush subject. I think they, they just didn’t talk about it much. So no, in fact I wish I had asked my parents more about that time, but they both didn't have much to say about it. So.

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Okay. Um, so, did they settle at the city where you were born? No. They—my mother went to the south of India because her brothers moved there. And then my dad went to Maharashtra, he actually went to school, to college, to

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this town called Pune, it’s called Pune now. And he studied the Indian admin—administrative service there. It's like a, you know, a graduate program.

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So, he studied there and when he graduated he married my mom through an arranged marriage. And then he got—was offered a job in Gujarat in the, in the IAS service. So, he moved to Gujarat.

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Gujarat is a big province, so they moved around. But I was born in, within that province. Okay. Um, so it was an arranged marriage—uh did your—how did your families, or the two

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families, like, know each other? Through just connections. Yeah, that's just a, there are systems in place in India that nobody quite knows how it happens but it just happens.

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So, yeah. Um, so what were their professions when you were growing up? My mother didn't really have a profession, she did later on become an artist. She did paintings and

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she could read and write fluently—which she really only had a high school education. My dad was an um, uh, he was—in India, they call them collectors. So he—but there' s nothing to do with like tax collection.

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Basically he was like the administrative head of a city. So, it's like every city having its own mayor. So he was like the mayor of—so he was a deputy mayor that he became, but he worked his way up to that. He retired as the undersecretary of Gujarat.

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So it was kind of like in the administrative service. So uh, taking care of the needs of the city and you know, he would have people that would see him. There were a lot of the rules that were passed—a lot of the cities in India and

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states run very independently, so. Okay. Uh, so he was elected? Or he was— No, he was appointed. Yeah, he wasn't elected.

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Yeah, I think elected goes uh, unique to—all the, all the collectors and appointees and really elections in India in the state? I don't know if that's only, only parts of—there’s a different level for that.

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That's like the, the different parties that are ruling, then you uh basically belong to a party. He just worked for the government. He was like a government servant or a gov—in government service.

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So different, you know, like more of a bureaucrat is what he was. Um, so how did they adjust to their new home? So, like did they ever expect to go back to Pakistan?

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No, I don’t—that never even came up in my entire growing up. They knew it would never happen. They knew there was so much—I mean Pakistan at the time was a very violent country. I mean it still is pretty violent.

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So, they just turned their backs. They knew they would never make it back there. And all their family came to India so they had nobody left. Like their parents came, uh all the entire family, like the

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whole uh, extended family migrated to India. I mean to— yeah, to India. So. Okay, like all together? Were you all in the same place? Uh, mostly, mostly, but then they all separated when they

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got into their own professions and got older. So in the beginning, yes, they were all together. Okay. And so, were you close with any of them? Yeah, at the time, I was.

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Um, just going to visit them during family breaks and all, so yeah. Uh, did you have a favorite relative? A few, um, a few, just—yeah, my dad—my mom' s brothers and my dad's two sisters, yeah.

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You know, at that age, you—your perception of people was very different. So who brings me like chocolates, I like them more, things like that. So yeah… Yeah. Okay.

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And uh so did you like, learn a lot about your distant ancestors through your family? Uh no, not a whole lot. I think my parents were very traumatized by the, the Partition

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and they just shut that door. They didn’t talk about it. I—I have heard more about my ancestors just through my aunt who's now living, my dad’s sister.

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I have—I have only one relative in that generation is still alive, everybody else has passed away. Okay, so you asked her about it as you were an adult. Yeah, as I was more of an adult.

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And it mattered to me, so. I guess because my parents never talked about it I never thought—I mean I knew it was hard on them, uh but I didn't know, I didn't know how bad it was. So, I know my mother at one point told

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someone that when she was at the train station getting on—they lived in Karachi. Uh, she said when she was on the train station, getting onto the train to catch the train to South India.

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She said she saw people getting beheaded on the streets— on—I mean on the, on the train, railway station. And they were just terrified. She was like uh, thinking like a late teens at the time.

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So, it was a very scary time. Yeah, I feel like uh, when people don't talk about things, yeah, you know it’s worse. Yeah, totally, yeah. Um, so uh can you tell me about the community and

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larger neighborhood that you grew up in? Uh, so I grew up in a community that was mostly people locally, people that were local, but this is what happened. My parents—my, because my dad worked for the government, we always had like

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nice houses, like kind of big bungalows with large uh, yards and we have our own set of like cars and drivers. So I never really had like a neighbor. Uh, I went to school and you know, we always—what my dad was

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very particular about is that we go to English-speaking schools. So when—he, he moved around a lot in order to have an upward career in the state, he had to move out a lot. So he moved to different cities

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within the state of Gujarat. Every time we moved we always made sure that we went to an English school, but we didn’t really stay. And I think there was only one city I stayed in more than like two years. So, we moved like maybe twelve times through my growing up.

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So it was a lot of moves. So I don't really have like a sense of like, oh, this was like my childhood growing up place because we moved, we were all over the place. Mhm. Um, so why did

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he want you to go to all English-speaking schools? Because he just wanted me to be—me and my older, two older brothers. He just thought that English was important for our future education because if we studied only in the local

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school than we couldn't, you know rise above what he thought, what he wanted us to be, so. Um, did that mean that you were hoping to move to an English-speaking place or?

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Not at all, no I don’t think they ever thought about that. Yeah but you know, in India because the British were there for over 200 years. There's a lot of English-speaking schools—the whole

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country speaks English. So I think for them, being educated means—meant speaking English. My—I mean, my parents both spoke English fluently. So there was no question that they were gonna put us in English schools. And all the English schools, they also had a excuse me, they had

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um, I had to learn like a local language. So I had to learn Hindi or Gujrati Yeah, so it wasn't just like English, so. The other lang—I mean I speak four languages now, so.

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Yeah, I saw that I was like, how—how did you learn all of those languages? Just b—by being there. Yeah, so. Um, and which languages did your parents speak at home?

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They spoke Sindhi, which is their na—mother tongue. Uh, I spoke more Hindi, but I speak Hindi and Sindhi both. And we as kids, we’re going to school, we began to speak more English. So, but I learnt Sindhi fluently.

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Mhm. Okay. Um, so how was your school experience? What were your like favorite subjects? Um, I loved science.

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And it’s terrible—you know it was funny, I was not very good at math. When I came to the US, I’m like, hmm, I think I’m pretty good at math. Because I think relatively, because there were so many really smart kids around me, that I feel like my math skills

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were kind of mediocre compared to the Indian standard, but that perception of mine changed when I came to the US. But um, I think I liked science and I liked the arts. But in those days they really

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was no such thing as like an art—bachelor of arts was considered like a bullshit degree. So nobody really wanted to get that. It was only for people that didn’t really want to ever do anything, which

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is not something that I thought I would do but I think my parents pushed me to… was going to science. It seemed to have some more like stability, so. Mhm. Okay.

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And what did your brothers study? They studied engineering. Yeah, they will both studied engineering. Yeah, it's the

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standard thing that the Indian parents want their kids to study, so. Okay. Um, did they like specifically uh, push your brothers toward engineering and you toward science or? I mean uh, yeah kind of.

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The thing is those things are like, our parents in India have so much control over what you do at the time, you know, it was this—it was a generation where they, they were very much a part of that decision, so. And I think every—I mean engineering is considered like the, the lowest

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rung because they want you to become a doctor. So if you're an engineer, it means that you kind of already… you’re already not as smart as other people are becoming doctors. Yeah, so. Unfortunately that’s just the reality of India.

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So, yeah. Um, so then outside of school, what were your favorite pastimes? Um… I mean I loved to cook, but I didn’t really consider cook a past—cooking was just something I

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did because someone had to cook and my mother was sick, so I learned how to cook really young. But I didn’t consider cooking as like an art form. Cooking was just like, okay, well who’s gonna make dinner, I

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guess I’m gonna make it. It was more like a necessity. But I loved food even then, I mean I had a passion for food since I was a child. I wanted to—I was curious about the way others ate, because

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what we ate at home was very different from what other locals ate. So I was very curious about how they ate. Okay. Uh, what was it that other locals ate? It was—well they were uh vegetarians.

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So the community of Gujarat is mostly vegetarian people, like locals—and some—a lot of Gujaratis that live in the US eat meat now. But the Gujaratis that live in India are vegetarians, most of them.

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So, I was very—and their cuisine was very different from what my mother cooked at home. And those days, going out to a restaurant was like a once or twice a year thing. Like we didn’t go out to the restaurants at all.

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At the most we went out and ate street food, which was pretty common. But even that like, you know, maybe once a week. Um, so there, when I did make it to a friend's house when I was—I think around like seven or eight or nine years

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old, I thought the food was really good. I came home to my mom, and she's like, "Oh I don't like that cuisine. That food's awful." I'm like, "But I love it!" So it took me some time to understand how they—

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what they did with their food. It's very different from how my mom cooked, so. Okay. Um, and then did you ever like, have the chance to try really foreign foods? Not at all.

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It just wasn't around, there was nothing, it was only local Indian food. There was always—there's always been Chinese food in India. Because a lot of Chinese migrated to India. So there's uh, like Chinese food—like Indo-Chinese food is pretty

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common in a lot of restaurants in India. So I got—I got to taste that, and we had like two cooks that lived with us, one of them used to work at a Chinese restaurant. So he would make Chinese food for us at home, so we kind of got to

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know—but Chinese food like um, chop suey, or like egg rolls, you know very basic. Uh, it all had tons of Indian spices thrown into that, so. It was like Chinese food via India, so. Uh, what was a food that you were really curious about,

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like maybe something that you never got the chance to try, but only on special occasions or something? You know, I—I can't remember… I can't say that there were foods that I used to crave because I

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didn't know they existed. Like you know, you just don't know what's out there in the world. If you don't know what's there, you don't know what—so to me, the food that my friends at school

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were eating at home was what I was really curious about. I'm still curious about that food, I love that food. I love that local Gujarati food. So I feel like I didn't really—say, I wanna learn—I wanna

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know what Austrians eat, or what—because it was such a foreign land. You know, those days there was no internet, all I knew was—I could only get the information that I could via books or the newspaper or

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the library. There wasn't any other source for information. So I didn't know what—I mean I knew Italy was a country, I knew who the president was, I knew the capital, that was about it. And you

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could point it out on a map, we had a globe so we could point out, there's Italy, but I didn't really understand that oh, Italians eat a whole different cuisine. Like, those thoughts just never formed in my brain at the time. So. Uh, how about a least favorite food?

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Um, I really pretty much liked all food! I mean I think there were things I didn't like, like uh, you know, there were uh—and I talk about them now when I do some—do some writing, but

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there's vegetables in India like bittermelon. And I thought it was the nastiest thing in the world when I was a kid because my mother would make a big pot and she's like, "That's for dinner." I'm like, "I don't wanna eat dinner today!" Because I just thought it was

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terrible. But now I love it. So it's a question of—so those were the kinds of foods, like my—my parents would like make tomato soup, and I remember saying, "I don't wanna eat tomato soup." And my dad was like, "Well eat it like it's medicine." I'm like, "Okay, I'll have two spoons of it,

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'cause that's how much medicine I'm gonna drink." And then they get really mad at me. 'Cause I was the youngest and I was very spoiled, so I would just sit there at the table like, tears streaming down my face, saying I don't want to eat this soup because I think it's terrible.

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And I'm sure it was really delicious when I think back now, but it was so different from my normal food that I just didn't want to have it. They would experiment with different foods at home, and I was really rebellious about not wanting anything different.

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I just feel like I didn't really know what tomato soup was, or—things like tomato soup, bittermelon, those are my two memories of like not wanting to eat. Yeah. Uh, and then you said—like on your website, it says that you use

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Ayurveda in your recipes now? Yeah, I do. And I mean when I was growing up—so Ayurveda's a really interesting subject that's getting really big now. But what happened is that when the uh British were in India, they actually

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um, suppressed any Ayurvedic uh, uh, medicine around. Even the doctors, or the therapists, or the you know—Ayurvedic uh, counselors, were forced to shut down their offices. So it became this like

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underground medicine that would go around the country. People were not openly using it. And what was interesting is that I just knew Ayurveda at the time as this like, like my parents

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would uh, go off once a year, once every two years, to do like this— it 's called a panchakarma, which is like a five-step process. You stay at—you know, you can do it at home, and now they do like three-day

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panchakarmas, but ideally it should be like twenty-one days. So my parents would off to like a resort for like three weeks to do—just to kind of do it which is a real cleanse.

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So I knew that. I knew they would go off and they'd come back like looking really good, because they had like, been eating like, you know, juice and super healthy foods for three weeks.

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Uh, but I didn't really know what that meant, it was kind of this like vague thing, we never talked about it much. But when we got sick, what's interesting is that most Indians just know home—home remedies.

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So uh, when we got sick going to the doctor was a really big deal. We didn't go to the doctor that much. It was always home cures, till we were really sick, and then we went to see the doctor. Mm, okay. What were the cures?

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I mean anything from turmeric and honey if you had a sore throat, or you know, drinking like a fennel tea if I had a stomach upset, uh, they gave us—they gave us you know, if we had dry fevers, then they would put like uh cold compresses on our forehead, and make us

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drink a lot of water or make us eat something before—I mean the fever had to last a few days before we were taken to a doctor, or a doctor was called to our house. So. Um, so did it have like any religious connections?

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No, not at the time, my parents were not religious when I was growing up. They were religious to the point that we celebrated all the major festivals, but we didn't really go to temples or uh, uh like ashrams or

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any of that. At one point that changed, when I was about thirt—thirteen, fourteen, like early teens. My brother had a major problem in his university, he got expelled from school and he was kind of like their,

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their golden boy, and he got kicked out of college. I think my parents just had a huge—like, it was a real shock to our family, and my mother became religious immediately after that. And then she would require

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us all to go with her, we were like, "Why do we go to the temple now?" you know, but we would just go. And my whole reason to go was just be able to eat the food, there was a lot of food in the temples. So yeah. What food?

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So in India, most temples, or like, like even um, gurdwara's what they're called, that we went to. There's always like uh kind of, you know they'll chant some uh, pujas they're called, kind of like you know prayers— they'll chant those, and at the end of that there' ll be

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some like talk. And there's always a kitchen in most temples or ashrams and the kitchen always prepares food. So you kind of get lunch or breakfast or an early dinner after that, so that was always a—and I used to love the food

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because they always made the food with like heat , it was very tasty simple vegetarian food. I used to love that. So go there the condition that my mom will let me eat some of her food and my own because I loved it so much.

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And she’s like “Okay,” th-then I would go. So otherwise I refused to go. Okay. Uh, did you—what was your understanding of religion? Nothing! I mean really nothing.

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Very very like basic and… and you know because my dad was not religious till the end. He kind of resisted any religious uh, which is how kind of I am, but uh, I do have um… um… and you know, as I was

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becoming a teenager yoga was part—they offered yoga to us as well in our curriculum and it seemed like something easy. So like okay, I'm going to do yoga. It was either gym or yoga so I picked yoga through my high school years.

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And um, so I did yoga for about four years. I think it was like one day or one—thirty or forty minutes every morning we would do it, and it was very simple, very basic um… Yoga was really telling us how to

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breathe better um, and do a few little exercises. But that kind of ended up... certain religious ways. Not much, I mean I think also, I also went to

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Christian schools because all the English-speaking schools in India the time were run by either British or Italian uh nuns. Uh, so every school I was in, we actually had to say a prayer at the beginning of

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school that had uh… and you had to say amen at the end. And at one point, I think my dad heard about that, he's like, “Why are you saying amen?” I’m like, “I’ve just been saying that my whole life.” He’s like, “No you

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shouldn't be saying that,” so he went to the school and told the principal that you know, you're forcing our kids to recite Christian uh terms, which really was kind of silly I feel in hindsight. But he, I mean he took

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that away from that part of that, that school where he didn't let us—like you choose to not say amen. Or not say the prayer, yeah. So because your dad complained…?

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Yeah, ‘cause my dad complained. He had a lot of power to the city so he when he complained people would get scared and they’re like okay, we’re not gonna do it. So, they listen to him. So. Okay.

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Um, oh—so but your uh parents were basically pushed out of Pakistan for their religion? Uh yeah, kind of. Even though they won't like practicing Hindus.

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You know, I think what happened with the Britishers and you know, it really fractured India because India, Indians—Hindus and Muslims existed together for thousands of years.

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And because you know, the Muslims were ruling India for a long time before the British took over and overthrew them. So really, uh, British, India—Hindus and Muslims were coexisting for a long time.

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But suddenly at that time, there was this like uh, this divided rule, kind of. Uh, so they created this division between religions and then suddenly there was this like fear among all the Hindus that if we stayed in Pakistan, they might kill us.

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So let's just leave. So they did, yeah. Mhm. So being Hindu wasn't necessarily about like, your belief in the religion, it was—? It’s kind of how you were born.

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And what they also did uh is, I don't know if Muslims converting Hindus to Muslims, but there was a lot of, at the time they were like—there was another region of—like I knew in my school, there was a lot of girls that looked to me like they were South Indian.

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They were all Christian and they were actually Hindus that had been converted to Christianity by the Christian missionaries in the south of India. And they had come to Gujarat and you know, ended up there somehow. But uh, yeah religion was a funny

00:25:41.640 - 00:25:56.070

thing at the time. I feel like um… I don't remember any particular—I mean we did like, you know with Diwali which is kind of like the Christmas of India, it’s a big festival that happens every—it’s happening in about two weeks now,

00:25:56.070 - 00:26:08.020

here. So, there would always be a prayer my mother would do, and she would—so those things we did. But you know as kids you just kind of yawn and want to just get out of there so you can go play or do fun things.

00:26:08.440 - 00:26:23.370

Uh, so I don't remember ever feeling like I had to sit through any like sermon or anything like that with my mom ever. With my parents, so. Um, so then you said when you were thirteen your mom got sick.

00:26:23.850 - 00:26:38.370

Yeah, she had a fall and she was kind of bedridden for um, almost a year. So, my dad tried to cook and it was pretty disastrous. And I’m like, why don’t I try? So I did and, I was able to make some…

00:26:39.360 - 00:26:51.750

I mean I obviously I was learning then so it was like a new… and it just made me really curious about, how do you cook? And, and I had already had a kind of—my mom had two helpers in the kitchen so I made

00:26:51.750 - 00:27:05.710

them do all the chopping. And I’m like, “Okay, now tell me what to do.” So they kind of guided me on how to cook. So they knew how to cook too, but I uh, I was just trying to try to learn something. Okay, um so like, how did that responsibility

00:27:07.080 - 00:27:19.080

fall to you? I don't know how it happened. But I just feel like I just went there and I took it. I don't think anybody said to me, “Oh, you must go cook.” It was definitely, I definitely volunteered to do it.

00:27:19.080 - 00:27:28.970

Also because I love food, I didn’t want to eat what my dad was attempting to cook. So, it was like either I cook or we eat some really bad food. So, I thought, let me just try.

00:27:29.480 - 00:27:41.460

Okay. What did you cook? I don’t remember, it’s been too long. I think I just—but I do remember that I cooked foods where I was using a lot of like cream and oil and butter and that's

00:27:41.460 - 00:27:53.240

because I really loved like, the idea of like, really rich Indian food. Because that's what I had eaten in hotels when I traveled to other cities, so I was trying to emulate what I had eaten in hotels.

00:27:53.310 - 00:28:02.820

I didn’t really want to eat my mother's like really simple home cooking. I grew to appreciate that when I got older but at the time I wanted something else. So my dad’s like, “Our grocery bill is really high because you keep

00:28:02.820 - 00:28:11.300

telling the servants to buy all these things for you! He’s like, why are you using all this?” I’m like, and my brothers are like, “No, let her do it!” “The food is really good, like, let her cook.” but I

00:28:11.300 - 00:28:23.040

think after about a year or two doing that my mother got better and my grades were going down. So they kind of kicked me out of the kitchen and said, “Go back, you need to focus on your studies.” So. So, it must've taken a lot of time and energy.

00:28:23.410 - 00:28:34.670

Yeah, but I think I enjoyed it a lot, so I don't think it was that… I mean this was also a family of like five so it wasn't like—and I had so much help. So, I was really not doing that much. And the interest was there, so.

00:28:34.940 - 00:28:52.400

And it came easy to me, cooking was really easy for me. Yeah. Um, so what did you—as a really young child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Like not even considering the practicality?

00:28:53.030 - 00:29:02.670

Uh, I definitely wanted to go to cooking school. Because—and that was something that came up you know in my like late teens. I didn't want to become a doctor, 'cause that's what my parents wanted me to

00:29:02.670 - 00:29:11.310

be. And I'm like, I don't wanna be a doctor. And they're like, what—and I said, why don't I go learn how to cook, and they're like, “Why would you do that? That's such a waste of time.” And I'm like, “No.”

00:29:11.640 - 00:29:24.150

There was a catering college in Mumbai that I wanted to go to, it was a two-year program. It was the only culinary program in India, hands-down. Like that was it. If you went there, you learnt something and that was it. So, I wanted to go there.

00:29:24.680 - 00:29:35.300

Uh, but it was two years, it was out of city, and my parents were like, we're not sending you there. So they said, just do something in science. So, then I picked microbiology. Mhm. Why microbiology?

00:29:35.300 - 00:29:48.020

I don't know why I picked—I think I went into science, and it’s—I think at the time, my mentality was that studying little critters is better than studying human biology which to me was too daunting. So I think that's why I picked it.

00:29:48.230 - 00:30:04.360

And microbiology, again, I—I found it really simple and easy, and I was fascinated by bacteria at the time, so. Um, so yeah, I studied—I did a lot of work with microorganisms, like bacteria, viruses, and what causes diseases,

00:30:04.360 - 00:30:17.020

so, yeah. Oh, people usually assume that microbiology is harder than human anatomy. I know, I don't know why. I guess—I mean the thing in India is that you know,

00:30:18.590 - 00:30:28.340

average Indian kids are very uh, ambitious. Or most Indians are very ambitious. So I was kind of one of those people that didn't really want to study.

00:30:28.840 - 00:30:37.420

I just wanted to go cook or do something in that field. So, I had to kind of keep up with the people around me, so I didn't want to be like this—do like the dumbest thing ever.

00:30:37.420 - 00:30:53.800

So, I wanted to study something—and I wasn't, I was a smart kid, I just didn't want to apply myself to things I wasn't good at, the things that didn't interest me. So I—and I was terrible in college, I was—I would like run away from classes, I think I skipped college so many

00:30:53.800 - 00:31:10.480

times that I lost track of how many classes I skipped and, I was just not a very dedicated student. But I still uh, graduated at the top of my class though, so I managed to do that. By the third year I caught up with all my, my problems that I had in the past uh, three

00:31:10.480 - 00:31:26.180

years, yeah, so. Uh, who were you idols or role models? Um… I mean really, there was a college of architecture that was right next to my science college, and

00:31:26.180 - 00:31:35.630

I used to go hang out there a lot. And I was really fascinated with architecture. So, I—I just loved the idea of like design and like, beauty of some sort.

00:31:35.630 - 00:31:47.680

I don't know, I just feel like—I used to go there and I would hang out more there in my breaks than I would hang out at my science because all the science college kids were too like, really boring. I didn't want to hang out with them. Like, I found that they were like super

00:31:47.680 - 00:32:02.730

nerdy and I was not a super nerd at the time. So the architecture people were always like talking about, you know, buildings and like art projects and I thought that was really—and I had really—I never knew as architecture… I just feel like, you know, I was just so ignorant at the

00:32:02.730 - 00:32:11.470

time. I didn't think what architecture as a pursuit. So, I was fascinated by the architecture students. So, I would just go like hang

00:32:11.470 - 00:32:25.870

out with them and just see what they were talking about, I found that very fascinating. How did you go out and make friends with them? I don't know, I somehow—I think through some connection one time. I was I think trying to escape,

00:32:25.970 - 00:32:41.410

but I had like skipped college and I was hanging out with this uh, guy. And he's like you know, “Let's go to the architecture college, it’s really—they have great food there.” I’m like, “Okay, so let's go eat in their canteen.” So, but there canteen was like an open c—it was under

00:32:41.410 - 00:32:54.940

a big tree. And it was like these really like, all these guys from like New Delhi and all these other parts of the country that—I thought they were like the coolest guys and girls I’d ever met. Like they were the kind of people I wanted to be and hang out

00:32:54.940 - 00:33:07.470

with. Like they dressed really well, they were like, like really hippies, you know? This is, you're talking um, late 70s. So it was like the hippie culture of India.

00:33:08.270 - 00:33:21.530

And so those are the people that I found very fascinating. So yeah, that's also why I think I wanted to be there. Yeah, I can see that. There's definitely like, people at Rice that I find really cool.

00:33:21.850 - 00:33:33.900

But um, uh so like what was the hippie culture? You know, they hippie culture was definitely a lot of drugs, and a lot of um, um you know protests

00:33:34.060 - 00:33:48.030

and uh, but somehow I never got caught up in any of that. Like I, I was raised in a very happy home. So I never had anything to complain about. I never—I had no like anger, or any like um, and

00:33:48.770 - 00:34:06.270

I—I had a couple of friends um, in my like late high school years that uh, were into… And I tried drinking, and I never really tried drugs. I feel like, almost like I missed out on a whole era of drugs because

00:34:06.270 - 00:34:19.060

I was so resistant to trying anything. And my parents never said don't do drugs, they just never said anything! But I just had the happiest household, so I was never like looking to run away from home. And when people did drugs, I would just kind of escape and go home.

00:34:19.060 - 00:34:30.790

Like I was never curious about it, I just somehow, it didn't seem right. Like I think I tried to—I smoked a little bit, I smoked cigarettes and I would just keep coughing. And I'm like okay, this is too much work, I don't want—don't

00:34:30.790 - 00:34:45.480

think I want to cigarettes. And I just didn't—it didn't taste good, to me I was such a—my palate was so important to me, like if nicotine didn't taste—it smelled good, I loved the smell of it, I've never liked the taste of cigarettes. So it's funny, I always tell people I like to be around people that smoke, 'cause I love

00:34:45.520 - 00:34:57.150

the smell of nicotine but I don't like the taste—taste it in my mouth. So I didn't like the taste of cigarettes, I figured I'm not going to like the taste of marijuana or, you know all these other drugs that people were doing so rampantly at the time.

00:34:57.220 - 00:35:11.280

Like it was like everywhere, yeah. Very common. Especially in the architecture school, it was everywhere. But I somehow just managed to just never get into it, so. Wh—uh, was it kind of

00:35:11.770 - 00:35:24.910

influenced by Western culture, Western hippie culture? I don't know, I feel like—I don't know that. I don't know whether it was influenced by Western or it was more of a— I mean Indians have been smoking pot for a long time, it' s not a new

00:35:24.910 - 00:35:37.840

thing there. I mean they have different names for it but I think… I don't think it was influenced by the West honestly, I think it was… it was a rebellious thing to do, it was

00:35:38.040 - 00:35:49.640

definitely… and there were like different blends of uh, things there. Because I always could tell the smell of something different. So, I would smell different things around them.

00:35:50.440 - 00:36:03.140

And I would go home smelling of them, my mother would say, “Where have you been?” You know? So, she could tell I had been there when I—and I would tell her like, “Oh I went to architecture, I skipped school today!” She's like, “Don't do that!” I'm like, “Okay I won't do it tomorrow.” But I would do it the next day, you know, so,

00:36:04.320 - 00:36:18.430

yeah. It was just a very happy home, so I was—there were never like, I think at one point my grades were slipping and they got upset at me, so I'm like, “Okay okay, I'll catch up with my grades.” So I did, so. Um, so then did

00:36:18.510 - 00:36:30.700

you ever expect to, or want to live outside of India? No, never. In fact I would tell my mom that you know—'cause I had cousins that were getting married and they were coming to the US. And I'm like I don't want to marry a guy from the US, I want to

00:36:30.700 - 00:36:40.250

stay in India. I always thought Indian culture was amazing, like I loved everything about India, even before it was fashionable to love something about India. I was always fascinated by everything around me, so.

00:36:40.790 - 00:36:56.120

I had no desire to leave, in fact I was upset about leaving, I think I cried a lot by the time I was going to leave India. And I had to give up my US—Indian—I had to give up Indian citizenship to become an American citizen, I think I cried like the whole morning because

00:36:56.120 - 00:37:10.840

I knew I had to give up my Indian citizenship, so. Yeah, yeah, no I wasn't really interested at the time. Were you always like, really affectionate towards Indian culture even as a kid?

00:37:11.760 - 00:37:23.420

I mean, there were some things about Indian culture I did not like, and I still don't. But uh, no, it was just what we did. So, I don't think it's something I thought about that, oh, do I love the culture?

00:37:23.420 - 00:37:34.950

It was the only culture I knew. So I loved it, I didn't really—but I didn't really like, think about it at the time. It's only when I left it that I began—and the beginning when I went to Canada, I was like—I mean I

00:37:34.950 - 00:37:45.590

thought everything was like eye candy, and you know in Canada everything was just so beautiful. And I'd never seen streets like that, or houses like that, or supermarkets like that. So, I thought everything was

00:37:45.590 - 00:37:57.770

like, amazing. And I kind of you know drank the—drank the North American Kool-Aid for a while before I realized that wait, why doesn't any of this taste that good? You know, so that's kind of what changed my

00:37:57.920 - 00:38:14.670

perception. Okay. Uh, so how did you decide to go to Canada? I didn't decide that, I was married to a man that was li—I had an arranged marriage. I was—I was married to a man that was living in uh, Canada, he had a job there. So, yeah. So, how did the arranged marriage happen?

00:38:15.940 - 00:38:30.560

I mean, you know, it was—it just, my parents kind of told me that—I was about nineteen and a half. They're like, oh, we're going to go to Delhi to um… I think we had just been there for a wedding of one of

00:38:30.560 - 00:38:44.520

my cousins. And they're like, we're going back because we have some—I don't know, they made up some story why I had to go. Then on the train there, they told me, “You're going to go see a guy there, that's like this really—he's like the catch of the community, and you

00:38:44.520 - 00:38:55.180

know he's been…” So India has this school called the IIT. It's kind of like the MIT of India but it's much harder than MIT would be. So, very few people got into that, I only had like two cousins that got into that

00:38:55.220 - 00:39:08.040

college. “So, he's like an IIT scholar, and he has this great job in Canada, you know he has rejected like hundreds of girls, and we're gonna take you there, and he's goin—if he wants to marry you, you're going to marry him.” And I'm

00:39:08.040 - 00:39:18.050

like, “Okay.” So I was kind of like, you know, didn't really know what I was getting into. So I went there and I met him, and uh, yeah.

00:39:19.200 - 00:39:33.020

That was, that was uh, December—no. Yeah, December of 1981, that I first met him. I was married December 29th, 1981! Yeah, it was that fast.

00:39:33.910 - 00:39:49.690

Yeah. How did, like—when you went there were you determined to get him, or? Not at all. I didn't really have any interest in getting him. And you know I was so young that I di—I thought marriage was something like that would happen years ahead to me.

00:39:50.330 - 00:40:03.000

But he was like a good- looking, very capable guy, and his family looked really nice, so I kind of came home and—so after we met the first time, they called my parents and said that you know, “We really want to

00:40:03.600 - 00:40:14.830

marry your daughter— really wants to marry your daughter, is she—is she interested in us?” And my parents asked me, and I went like, “Oh, I think I want to meet him again.” So I went out for like um, I think a

00:40:14.830 - 00:40:31.070

lunch with him. And then I came back and, and my—and I don't really remember this but my friend that actually met me right after I said yes, she said, “I asked you why did you say yes, you said, I couldn't find a reason to say no!” That was my answer to her.

00:40:31.470 - 00:40:38.290

And she still teases me about that, she's like, “What a reason to marry somebody. Because you couldn't find a reason to say no, so you said yes.” But I guess I did, you know.

00:40:38.290 - 00:40:55.310

I was just young and stupid, so. So you like, you—so, uh… It would have to make you leave India though? Yeah, and I didn’t—I knew it would make me leave India, but I—I just think that,

00:40:55.730 - 00:41:05.940

you know, when you're that young, you don't understand what it means to leave the country. Like none of that was—I mean it sounded like something beautiful, he showed me a lot of pictures, I'm like, oh that looks really beautiful.

00:41:06.390 - 00:41:23.870

You know, I—it looked like this beautiful foreign land that looked like a fun place to visit. And I had never had like uh, any trauma in my life, so I look all—if I had, it was not, it was a very distant memory. So I um, didn't uh, like

00:41:23.870 - 00:41:34.520

it looked like a fun place and I didn't see any reason to say no. So I said yes. That's really what happened. Um, so when were your kids born?

00:41:35.300 - 00:41:53.440

My kids were born in um, '88 and '90. Yeah, so they were born many years after I got married. Eight years after. Were you living in the US? Um, I was actually in Canada for my daughter, and with my son the

00:41:53.440 - 00:42:05.460

year he was born was the year we moved to the US. We moved here in 1990. Okay. Um and, so when you went to Canada, uh, how did you get that first

00:42:07.280 - 00:42:23.280

job? Uh, so I had a degree in microbiology and I had just—that summer I had applied for my master's, because I graduated like, I think in the top five students in the college, and they were all trying to convince my parents that you know, she should study further, you

00:42:23.280 - 00:42:34.410

know she's really smart. So my parents said, “Okay, let's study a master's—why don't you just apply for your master's.” And they were offering I think a scholarship, or something was happening, I don't know the details. But for some reason, I

00:42:34.410 - 00:42:47.180

basically entered the master's program. So when I was getting married, my parents and my hus—the guy I married, my husband, he's like, you know, “If she's in her master's here, why don't we just make her do her master's in Canada?

00:42:47.680 - 00:43:01.780

That way you don't feel like I'm taking education”—he was very into education, you know Indians. And he was a very—real nerd. So he's like, “I'm just going to get her to get to the University of Alberta master's program, and she can study there.” So I just

00:43:01.780 - 00:43:15.230

basically applied—he applied for me, and I think I arrived uh… So you know the visa—the visa process took about six or seven months. So I was married in December, I went to Canada in Ap—in August.

00:43:15.530 - 00:43:31.860

August 12th of 1982 is when I first arrived in um, uh, Edmonton, Canada. Mhm. Uh, do you remember that first day, what was your first impression? Um, I just remember—so I

00:43:31.940 - 00:43:39.770

was at the airport in Frankfurt which I thought was like, I just went around all over the airport and checked it out. Just a beautiful airport. So I think I went around and I had

00:43:39.770 - 00:43:54.540

some fun there. And then I um, landed in Calgary, and came home, and I have some not very pleasant memories of that first day. Uh I don't know, it was just a very emotional—like I felt, 'cause you know

00:43:54.540 - 00:44:05.920

when you drive in the U—in Canada or the US, everything is like so far away, and India's a country where everything's right next to you. So I was like, “Oh my gosh, like we just keep driving, like when are we gonna get to where we live?

00:44:05.920 - 00:44:25.970

And why is the house so big, like everything seemed really big and cold and distant.” So it didn't—it didn’t feel good at the time. Um, so like at first, it was kind of exciting and then later it wasn't so good? At first it was not, it was exciting and then also scary.

00:44:26.580 - 00:44:42.630

So it felt like beautiful but really like cold and big and lonely. So um, my husband lived in a suburb at the time, so um, I know within two, three days of getting there, and I'm like, “So, when is the

00:44:42.630 - 00:44:56.530

cleaning lady gonna come?” He's like, “We don't have a cleaning lady.” I'm like, “Who's gonna clean?” He's goes, “you and I are.” I'm like, “We are?! You're gonna clean the whole house?” He's like, “Yeah.” I was like, “Oh. What does that mean, I'd never seen a toilet brush in my life.” So for me that was a

00:44:56.530 - 00:45:05.680

wake-up call, that gosh, I gotta do all of this myself. I have to cook, clean and do it all myself. So those were like new things for me. And I was young and spoiled, I had never cleaned.

00:45:06.050 - 00:45:20.370

I had never like, dusted even my—a coffee table in my life, so that was new. Mhm. So how did you adjust? I mean I just had to, I didn't really want to but I uh, I mean I

00:45:20.460 - 00:45:31.120

feel like that wasn't a big deal, I was able to adapt and do what I needed to do. Um, so I don't have any—it wasn't a big deal, but it was certainly a shock at the time.

00:45:32.580 - 00:45:42.020

Was there a—an Indian community? Yeah, there was. In fact the day after I arrived my husband took me to meet this other couple that he—a guy that he used to work with.

00:45:42.740 - 00:45:55.090

An Indian guy and his wife, and they were a lovely couple and we became good friends over the years. They were around our age at the time. Okay. How about like Indian uh, grocery stores or

00:45:55.090 - 00:46:06.450

restaurants, or? No, Indian restaurants, I didn't really know much about. Uh we didn't really go out to eat much, I think we went to like, places like—local places like Swiss Chalet, which was this

00:46:06.450 - 00:46:16.230

chicken place, and other places like that is what we went to, so. So I remember going to an Indian place within a year or two of moving, but I don't remember going right away.

00:46:16.820 - 00:46:31.440

Mm. Uh, and then what was your reaction to the Canadian food? Uh, well I didn't love the taste, but I still remember the first time I ate the chicken at Swiss Chalet, it was like super moist.

00:46:31.930 - 00:46:43.980

You know what Swiss Chalet is? No. It's like, it's kind of like Boston Market, but it's like actually a sit-down restaurant, and they're known for roast chicken. That's what they, they just do a lot of roast chicken and they have some sides

00:46:43.980 - 00:46:55.390

with that. And I don't remember thinking, “Oh this is amazing chicken.” I do remember thinking that, “This is the juiciest chicken I've ever had in my life!” 'Cause it was so well cooked. In India they tended to overcook food, so

00:46:55.740 - 00:47:10.600

I remember it being like super dry, so I remember thinking, “Oh this is really tasty.” So I learned that oh you can cook chicken a better way than I'd been ever taught to cook. So uh, I think that was my best memory of my first meal I ate outside of home.

00:47:12.200 - 00:47:24.050

But my husband was a good cook, so he had prepared all this food for me. He's like you know, he wanted me to get comfortable, he didn't want me to cook right away. So he was very kind in making food that I

00:47:24.050 - 00:47:37.290

could eat for a few days till I got used to the surroundings and uh, I was more fascinated with the American—or the Canadian grocery stores than I was with the Indian. Indian to me was, I knew all that stuff, I wanted to see all the new stuff. Mhm. Um,

00:47:40.450 - 00:47:59.450

sorry, I just had a question, I forgot it. Okay, um so how was the experience of transi—transitioning into a place where you became the racial minority?

00:48:04.440 - 00:48:16.160

Um… I don't know, maybe it's just the way I've been wired since I was born. I never thought of myself as different from anybody else.

00:48:16.310 - 00:48:28.830

It's just the way my mind works, and sometimes people tell me that that doesn't make any sense, like why would you think that? I'm like, I don't know, but I never walk into a room thinking, “Oh, I'm Indian and they're all not Indian.” I just walk in as

00:48:28.830 - 00:48:42.940

myself. So I've never been a big um, “Oh gosh I'm Indian, what are they gonna say? Like because I'm Indian.” I just… I mean I spoke English fluently, so there was never a language barrier.

00:48:43.890 - 00:48:57.590

Um, so I remember getting a job at this— when I, when I—my first school experience, I think it was a few—quite a few Indians at this school. I didn't really look for the Indians, I just talked to whoever was next to me, like I

00:48:57.590 - 00:49:08.840

wasn't… I was never trying, I was never self-conscious about being an Indian. I don't know why, I don't have an answer for why I wasn't, but I just never was.

00:49:09.380 - 00:49:29.160

So… Okay. Um… oh and uh, I think I read somewhere that you were kind of a stay-at-home mom, uh… For a bit. Yeah, so when I had my daughter in Canada,

00:49:30.290 - 00:49:43.620

I had a—by the time I had gotten a degree in uh medical technology I was working with this microbiologist, and he would like, he had—in a hospital, he had me—and before that I worked, you know, I worked the night shifts where they, in the

00:49:43.620 - 00:49:55.520

hospital, I was the microbiologist on call. So if any sick person came in I had to do a culture, and read it and report to the doctor to see what they would do as far as curing them. So I worked in the hospital for a year, so

00:49:55.520 - 00:50:07.850

and then I worked for this microbiologist. And uh it was a really good job, so when I finished—when I had my daughter, within three months I went—I told him I'm having a child. Then three months I went back to work for him.

00:50:08.970 - 00:50:23.000

I worked at a part-time, full-time, as he needed me. So… what was your question? Sorry. Oh I uh, I just was wondering— Yeah. So I worked then, and then was happened is, NAFTA happened

00:50:23.070 - 00:50:33.060

around um, '87, '88, '89 is when NAFTA—you know what NAFTA is right? It's the North American Free Trade Agreement.

00:50:34.160 - 00:50:49.250

Yeah, it's a big deal—it's a big deal in the news, like a couple years ago when Trump was getting elected. So I think he wanted to overthrow the whole NAFTA thing. So NAFTA was created then, the agreement. So my husband, who was like a really well-qualified uh

00:50:49.700 - 00:51:01.700

specialty um, engineer, he could just walk over to the US and get a job. So he was getting all these amazing offers. So we moved to the US, and when I moved to the US, they didn't accept my

00:51:02.430 - 00:51:11.180

uh, Canadian degree, saying that you have to go back to school for two more years. And I was like, “That’s ridiculous. I’m not gonna go back to school for two years.” Because I’ve already gone to—’cause I

00:51:11.180 - 00:51:22.630

was studying towards my master’s for a year then I gave that up and then I went towards medical technology. So I went to school for like almost three or four years. And I didn’t want to—I had a daughter by then; I didn’t really want to go

00:51:22.630 - 00:51:37.180

back to school when I came to… I first—we first moved from Canada to from… we were in Calgary and I moved from Calgary to um Boston to Edor, Massachusetts. And they had uh… um that’s where they said

00:51:37.200 - 00:51:47.990

to me that “For you to, you know, work as a medical technologist, you’re gonna have to go back to school” and I was like “I don’t want to do that.” And also I was pregnant with my son at the time. So I was having a second child.

00:51:47.990 - 00:52:01.460

So then I thought, “Okay, Let me just stay home for a bit.” So I stayed home with my—I had my second child. For awhile, maybe three or four years? And, but in the meanwhile, I was cooking and getting ideas ready to do—run a catering

00:52:01.460 - 00:52:17.780

business and stuff like that so. Yeah. Um, how did just generally the experience of immigrating to a new country change you? Um, I think what mattered the most to me was that I missed the food.

00:52:18.730 - 00:52:30.210

Like I really—there were certain ingre—ingredients that I couldn’t buy in Canada because it was kind of no man’s land at the time and being in Edmonton—and then I was in Toronto which was better. But in Edmonton, you couldn’t find

00:52:30.210 - 00:52:44.140

like basic staples that I could easily find now. So I really craved certain tastes. And I would go back—and my mother had made my husband promise that they would send me back—he would send me back once a

00:52:44.140 - 00:52:53.280

year. So I went back once a year and I would literally arrive and say “Let’s go eat.” I got there from the airport I was like “I don’t want to go—I just want to go eat something on the street.” So I would go eat some street food on my way home.

00:52:53.280 - 00:53:01.370

I was so desperately missing the food. And I didn’t know how to make it. So I had to figure out, learn how to make it. Uh huh.

00:53:01.370 - 00:53:15.950

Okay. That’s a good transition into um like, when did you first get the idea to start your own catering business? Well because I was so interested in food and you know, my parents had not

00:53:15.950 - 00:53:32.290

really um, um had not really encourages me to s—cook for a living. Uh, but now that I was in Canada and I had already spent all these years working as a microbiologist and I kind of talked to my husband about uh,

00:53:33.330 - 00:53:42.530

wanting to cook. And he said “Why don’t you just go study?” And he was very encouraging and he was very supportive of my doing what I wanted to do. So I said, “Okay.

00:53:42.550 - 00:53:55.310

I’m going to go to… I’m going first—.” Then I thought about going to catering college so I went to University of Houston. I studied at… ‘Cause we moved from Andover, from Massachusetts to Houston within six months.

00:53:55.880 - 00:54:11.020

And then in Houston, I had my son, he was born in 1990 in December and uh by the mid-90’s, I’m like I think I want to go to school. So I went to school. So I went to the Hil—Hilton uh, Conrad Hilton

00:54:11.950 - 00:54:25.870

Program of Hotel Management, but I didn’t last there. I was like, I thought that what I was learning there… I feel like I didn’t need that, like it didn’t seem like a program that I wanted to be a part of so I, I think I took like two… two semesters then I quit

00:54:26.160 - 00:54:38.080

that. And I’m like, “Let me just work for a business.” But I—I wanted to do something with food. Like I was desperately missing food that I had never seen in India, all—all the, you know all the food I had

00:54:38.170 - 00:54:52.150

never seen in the US that I had grown up eating India. So, I wanted to replica-replicate those flavors. So. Um, so was the Hilton school just too much towards service?

00:54:53.100 - 00:55:06.780

It wasn’t that. But I found that when I went into there like um, I think first semes—the second semester I took management classes, and I feel like that was good. I learned a little bit there, but I feel like you know by that time I was uh like in my late

00:55:08.050 - 00:55:19.360

thirties and I had been a mom for a bit, and I felt that life had taught me enough that I wasn’t really learning that much and the culinary program that they had there

00:55:19.910 - 00:55:31.310

was like really haphazard. So I remember going in to, for like this morning baking program, and the recipe didn’t work, the teacher didn’t know how the recipe was supposed to be, and I’m like… and I was

00:55:31.310 - 00:55:39.880

just, at that stage of my life if they didn’t know what they were doing, I didn’t want to be there. I mean, I had already learned how to bake at home, better than what they were trying to teach me. So I’m like, you

00:55:39.880 - 00:55:52.530

know “Maybe this is not the program for me,” and the other programs were like in New York, cities that I knew I couldn’t leave and go to because I had two children. So I needed to do something local. Locally. So, I decided not to do that.

00:55:52.530 - 00:56:09.440

Okay, um, so then in Houston, what were your… your long term plans were to go into um, the culinary field? Yes, I wanted to showcase Indian food in a way that had never been done before.

00:56:10.210 - 00:56:23.470

I really wanted to like open up the like, people’s eyes as to what Indian food could be because I feel it was so misrepresented in the city at the time. So… Uh, and then did you also seek out an Indian

00:56:23.870 - 00:56:37.760

community in Houston? I didn’t seek it out, but it kind of came around me so it—I, you know when you have young kids, then you want your kids to hang out with other kids and we definitely had an Indian community that we

00:56:38.070 - 00:56:50.140

got to know, a North Indian community. And then I also had an American, like I was never like, I was never like super Indian. I never wanted to only have Indian friends.

00:56:50.140 - 00:57:02.630

I was very curious about the local culture. So I had a lot of American friends even immediately when I came from India. I found, I in fact in Toronto I had a lot of my friends that, because I—we moved to Toronto when I was

00:57:02.630 - 00:57:16.210

studying medical technology—I had to finish my second year in Toronto because my husband changed jobs—so uh, a lot of my friends actually were Chinese and I got to know a lot of like the Chinese and Taiwanese culture and

00:57:16.300 - 00:57:29.970

community just because they happened to be the ones that were in class with me. So, yeah. Uh, and then in Houston, your first job was at Cafe Annie, right? Yes. So how did you get that job?

00:57:30.600 - 00:57:48.590

I had actually… uh, my husband was in the… working with this big company called ABB uh… and they g—he was entering some clients and he was like “Can you book a restaurant?” At that time there was a place called Ruggles you wanted so… Yeah, so I said, “Okay,

00:57:48.690 - 00:58:02.310

I’ll book a table at Ruggles.” But it was, they had these private rooms and he wanted it to be a really super special dinner. So… and that day or that week I think the newspaper, the best restaurants in the country or the city had

00:58:02.310 - 00:58:19.670

come out and Cafe Annie—I had never heard about it at the time—it was at the number one. I’m like, “Oh we should go try this place.” But I called Ruggles and I made a reservation and then they um, uh called me that morning to say that uh I didn’t have a table

00:58:19.770 - 00:58:30.130

or for some reason; they just kind of gave me this story of how they were—I do not have a table that day. So I got a little worried and I’m like, “Okay I have my husband’s like clients coming from Japan.

00:58:30.610 - 00:58:42.330

I have to find a table for them.” So then, let me call— so I called Cafe Annie. And they’re like, “Oh! Of course we have a table, how many people?” I’m like okay, people, whatever. So I went there I’m like “This is so great!” And it was my first

00:58:42.330 - 00:58:53.500

meal there and I thought it was delicious, beautiful. Like, I was just like so awed by the restaurant. And then I asked them, “Are you guys hiring?” They like, “What are you looking for?” I’m like “A cook.” They’re like, “You

00:58:53.950 - 00:59:05.430

wanna be a hostess?” I’m like, “No, I wanna cook.” And they’re like, “Why don’t you come back tomorrow and apply.” I think I talked to the hostess that was in management at the time. And I went back the next morning and applied for the job.

00:59:05.430 - 00:59:18.890

And at first I… the person that called me that came out to talked to me was kind of their uh executive chef and his name was Ben Berryhill and he was like, “Oh! We love Indian food. It’s just like Mexican food.” And I’m like, “No it’s not.

00:59:19.320 - 00:59:30.910

What are you talking about? It’s completely different!” I almost got into an argument with him, but he just… he… I don’t know why he liked me a lot, he’s like, no actually he’s like, “Why don’t you come spend a day with us and get to meet s—you know spend a day in the kitchen to see if you like it.

00:59:31.760 - 00:59:42.200

At the end of the day, you can ask if you want a job. You can… we can talk about it.” I go, “Okay.” So I came back the following week and I spent the whole day there and at first I got into trouble because I

00:59:42.200 - 00:59:53.450

didn’t have the right shoes on. I didn’t have socks on. I had to run to Walgreens and pick up some socks. And then… so I spent the day with this like fish cook that told them that “Oh, she’s just a wannabe. Don’t hire her.

00:59:53.510 - 01:00:05.640

She’s not going to amount to anything.” They let her go. Uh so… but there was a pastry chef at the time, and she said to me, “Hey do you want to come work in pastry?” And I’m like, “Pastry?” I don’t even like… I don’t like sweets; I don’t have a sweet tooth.” But I

01:00:05.640 - 01:00:19.280

said, “Yes of course, I’d love to come!” I totally lied. And then they told me at the end of the day that I don’t have a job because they don’t think I could make it into a kitchen. So, you know, “Please, we’re not going to hire you.” So I’m like “Okay” but

01:00:19.280 - 01:00:31.610

then the pastry—I went to the pastry chef and I’m like “Look, you said I could come work for you.” And she’s like, “Yeah, why don’t you come back and you know just work, kind of see… Why don’t you come back to spend a day with me?” So I’m like, “Okay.” So I went back and spent a day, or a few hours with

01:00:31.610 - 01:00:42.100

her and she’s like “I don’t think you have any skills really, you know. You don’t know much, that much about pastry. Why don’t you…” um, I said, “I’ll work for free. I don’t need any jobs, just let me work.”

01:00:42.100 - 01:00:54.260

And she’s like, “Okay.” So they made me sign a legal document, and I worked for free for about a month and then they offered me a job. Mhm, okay. ‘Cause, I was like you didn’t have any cooking experience… No, professionally zero.

01:00:55.010 - 01:01:12.060

Yeah. But she took a chance on me, the woman that was the pastry chef at the time. Okay. Uh, so what were like the most important things that you learned from that job? Uh I mean I learned… I learned how to be in a kitchen

01:01:13.110 - 01:01:24.400

because you know commercial kitchen is very different from being in a home kitchen and I realized how I had to dress, how I had to be… um… conduct myself. And all that was very new to me.

01:01:24.400 - 01:01:36.870

So even um, and I was really really lucky, within about two months they allowed me to like… I worked every—I only worked like two, three days a week. So I didn’t really work full time. They allowed me on Monday nights, the chef there said “Ok.

01:01:36.870 - 01:01:49.630

If Anita makes a special, she can sell it.” And normally a special had to go through like five layers of management before it was allowed to be sold in the dining room, but he had given me permission, if I had kind of okayed it with

01:01:49.630 - 01:02:00.620

him, to sell specials. So I began to you know learn… I had to—I mean there were few things I knew how to make at home. So I would try to experiment with that. I learned the position of you know… I learned

01:02:00.850 - 01:02:14.110

that—because I had a degree in science so I could quickly fallback on my scientific skills that “Okay, these recipes…” ‘cause baking was more chemistry than regular cooking was. So I learned how coo—learned how to bake.

01:02:14.910 - 01:02:29.630

Then I began to really enjoy it even though I didn’t like to eat them, I loved baking. So baking became like this newfound excitement in my life. So… But you didn’t like to eat… No, I didn’t really have a sweet tooth so I never really baked to eat myself.

01:02:29.710 - 01:02:43.130

I only bake more to… I— my husband had a super sweet tooth, so I would make things that he would love so I would make my family really happy, but I would seldom eat a lot of that stuff. So yeah.

01:02:43.130 - 01:02:55.260

And uh… you also mention Robert Del Grande um and that he was like a big inspiration for you to start your restaurant so how did he influence you? He was very encouraging.

01:02:55.260 - 01:03:07.980

He basically um… at first I didn’t get to see much of him because he was always very busy and then one time I invited the executive chef Ben Berryhill and a couple other employees there to my house for dinner.

01:03:07.980 - 01:03:20.620

And I made them this meal and they were like, “Oh, this is really good, why don’t you…” So I said, “Oh,” so then a few days later Robert said to me that “I heard that you cook at home.” I’m like, “Yeah.” So I’m like, “I’m happy to bring you some food.” He’s like, “Oh, I

01:03:20.620 - 01:03:33.970

don’t want you to bring it. I—” He said, “I want to come to your house.” I’m like, okay. So then I arrange this dinner party at my house where I made everyone sit on the floor. I took my box spring and covered it with sheets. I put it in my—I took all the furniture out of my living room and put the

01:03:33.970 - 01:03:48.290

box spring in the middle of the room and I put pillows around it. And I invited like fourteen people for this dinner. And where I had, you know, certain people that were really uh, important to me at the time and we had this

01:03:48.290 - 01:03:59.590

like dinner with um, uh I made all these foods. And Robert that night, he turned around, he said to me that “You should open a restaurant. And how can I help you?” So after that, yeah the rest is

01:03:59.590 - 01:04:10.490

kinda history… so… He was very helpful. Mhm. How did your family and… old friends react when you said you wanted to open a restaurant? Well they all just made fun of me.

01:04:10.490 - 01:04:19.940

They’re like, “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re gonna… you’re never going to make it,” and I’m like, ,”Okay.” I mean, they’ve—that’s what they said when I said I’m going to go get a job in the restaurant business, they’re like, “Oh”.

01:04:20.480 - 01:04:29.790

And I said I’m going to start at a cafe and I’m going to work my way down to McDonald’s and all depends on what I’m going to get. I never thought I would get my first job at my first place I applied. And they were all like, “You work at Cafe Annie?

01:04:29.970 - 01:04:40.520

How did you get a job?” I’m like, “I don’t know but I somehow figured it out, you know?” So. Yeah. So. That’s really cool. Like, did you ever have any self doubt?

01:04:42.520 - 01:04:56.700

I mean, I didn’t have self doubt about uh, getting the job and doing what I had to do. Not really, no. I don’t know, it seemed—it didn’t seem that hard, you know, and I was a very disciplined person in some

01:04:56.700 - 01:05:09.450

ways. Like was—I was always at my job on time. There were a few ethical things that I had just learned that you always show up on time, you always do… So I knew how to be, so it didn’t seem like… and it

01:05:09.450 - 01:05:19.840

was just so interesting all the things that they made that I really wanted to be there. It was never like it didn’t seem like work, it seemed like a lot of fun. So, yeah. Yeah.

01:05:20.180 - 01:05:30.790

Um, and so your first restaurant was Indika, right? Yes. 2001. Uh so, okay. Uh, what was the process of starting that, like?

01:05:32.130 - 01:05:48.020

Uh, that was… so I had worked at Cafe Annie for a year and a half, and so and my husband at the time was you know not… he’s like, “Oh why don’t you go—” ‘Cause they were paying me like seven dollars an hour. He’s like, “You’re gone way too much, what you’re making— we’re paying our maid

01:05:48.090 - 01:05:57.610

more money than this. And you need to quit.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but I love the job. I don’t want to quit.” He put a lot of pressure on me to quit and do something, and I kept saying “But you know, I think

01:05:57.660 - 01:06:09.800

my kids are still too little. I want to wait a few more years; I’m not ready.” And he said, “You’re just going to keep saying that.” So he pushed me a lot to do something, so then when I started looking for a location. That’s where we found the location we were in.

01:06:10.220 - 01:06:24.780

So… Um, what style of cooking was it? I mean it was… it was Indian food but done differently. So I—I never really wanted to give it a name, I just called it like my interpretation of Indian food, and people that came there

01:06:25.320 - 01:06:35.980

that called it fusion, I used to always, I’m like, “This is not fusion. This is Indian food. I’m just presenting it differently to you.” Like I’m not… Basically whatever I learned from the past cultures

01:06:36.340 - 01:06:46.710

like, I travel to Europe a lot on my way to India. I had an uncle that lived in uh, Germany. I had another one who lived in London. So I would stop off at Frankfurt and London all the time on my way to India.

01:06:47.320 - 01:06:55.720

So I would see the way they would eat, the—I love their pastries. To me they were so much better than the pastries that are in Indi—in America, which is super sweet.

01:06:56.230 - 01:07:10.340

So the pastries in like in in Frankfurt or in London were just so much better and then I always loved the way like the Italians or the French plated their food. I always thought it was so beautiful.

01:07:10.340 - 01:07:21.360

I’m like, “Why don’t we ever plate like that? Like, our food can be plated just as well as theirs.” So, I learned, and that’s what kinda Robert… I learned at Robert’s restaurant, at Cafe Annie, how to plate food.

01:07:21.580 - 01:07:34.130

So, I applied that at Indika. Ok. Uh, how did you decide the first menu items? I had been experimenting with things. So, that menu I had been working in my head and in my

01:07:34.130 - 01:07:50.300

kitchen for like, many years. I think whatever I cooked for Robert that night when they came for dinner was what… was everything on that menu was on that—on that menu was on the restaurant menu. when it opened. Yeah. Um… so,

01:07:50.300 - 01:08:08.700

what were the greatest challenges in running Indika? Um… I think people. People management is always the toughest challenge. Because, you know, people are hard to manage and if they don’t do what they’re

01:08:08.700 - 01:08:21.440

supposed to do, if they don’t show up on time, they… you know, they do things they shouldn’t do, that’s always added pressure. So managing people is always the hardest thing. Cooking, coming up with the recipes ideas, that’s the easy part.

01:08:22.830 - 01:08:38.540

It’s people management. Uh, so how did you like overcome that? I mean I overcame—came that by just learning how to be a better person. Cause I was like super angry at first and I would get like really frustrated with people. I’m like, I mean I just kept fighting with

01:08:38.540 - 01:08:53.210

people. Finally I’m like, “I have to do all this myself.” Fighting with people is not such a great idea because then I get stuck with all the work. I had two kids and I was about to get a divorce and my life was in a real upheaval. So I didn’t really, I learned that, okay, I need to change my

01:08:53.320 - 01:09:04.250

mannerisms and learn how to be a better person. I’ll just feel better sleeping at night and… I would just get angry at people that would do like really dumb things. I’m like, “Why would you do that?” like, and I had never really

01:09:04.250 - 01:09:17.660

interacted with people where I was their boss. So, I would just like fly off into temper tantrums and like just… get really angry by something really small. Yeah. Um,

01:09:19.630 - 01:09:36.090

so then how did you decide to move from Indika to starting Pondicheri? I wanted to—like, Indika was always a high end restaurant with like, only—only catering to like uh, elite crowd, cause it was pricey and small, and even in its beginning, it was

01:09:36.090 - 01:09:48.650

still definitely, there was an elitist feel to it, you know, so I wanted to create a restaurant that was for everybody, like a more of a family diner style restaurant.

01:09:49.350 - 01:09:58.570

That’s what I wanted Pondicheri to be. Mhm. Um, and were you inspired by any other chefs or restaurants? Uh…

01:10:03.650 - 01:10:18.490

For Pondicheri? I don’t know if I can say that… I think everybody inspired me. Like, wherever I would go I would say, “Oh this is so brilliant.” I’m always listening and looking at what people do but I’m really, I’m never trying to emulate anybody’s… I’ve always had my own

01:10:18.490 - 01:10:32.330

ideas with food. And um, I just, no, I wouldn’t say that I was influenced by anybody. Um, like it wasn’t a big deal to me.

01:10:32.330 - 01:10:44.430

I was watching restaurants in New York a lot and they were doing new things and they were exciting, so I wanted to be on that forefront. Ok. Um, yeah cause Pondicheri seems, even when you just

01:10:44.430 - 01:10:55.050

walk in, it looks so different from like other restaurants. Yeah. And I wanted to represent Indian food in a way that I feel like… Indian food is, Indian restaurants just looks so Indian?

01:10:55.860 - 01:11:08.440

And when I say that I mean like it looks a little squalor and-- or if they look nice, they’re too fancy. So I wanted to be somewhere in the middle and have a really like, comfortable yet modern yet beautiful look to it.

01:11:08.710 - 01:11:22.210

So that was a challenge getting it to look like that. You know, so… Uh… where was the inspiration for… I mean, where did the inspiration come from for the appearance of it?

01:11:22.210 - 01:11:33.300

Uh, from India, definitely. If you go to India—have you been to India? No. No. So if you go there, like if you go into like rooms or you know beautiful houses, or palaces, there

01:11:33.300 - 01:11:43.870

is so much color and glitter everywhere. Like, they have mirrors on the walls. They’ll have bright colors, even like a poor—even like if you go into the slum villages in India and you say “Can I

01:11:43.870 - 01:11:53.170

come into your house?” The house probably would painted beautiful—beautiful colors inside. That’s just the way Indian homes are; it’s something very beautiful about India. So, I just feel like it

01:11:53.170 - 01:12:08.100

was another um… And my home was had become like my, a place where I was chest—testing out my design ideas. Like I think I was a—I always say I was an architect in another life because I really wanted to go into architecture in this life because I love

01:12:08.150 - 01:12:16.350

architecture just so much. So, I think it really came from wanting to create a space that felt like India. Ok. Um,

01:12:20.530 - 01:12:36.970

so how were… uh, how was Pondicheri first received when it opened? Really well. Extreme—I mean they were both received extremely well. We were pretty much mobbed. So for the first like… I would say six months.

01:12:37.840 - 01:12:49.340

We were mobbed. Every night. Did you expect that? Not as much. I’m not a very… I—I just didn’t think about it much. It wasn’t like something I thought

01:12:49.380 - 01:13:00.970

about. I knew people would come, and I’m just like, “I’ll do my best and hopefully they’ll come.” And they did, so. Mhm. And then how did Indian customers react compared to other customers?

01:13:00.970 - 01:13:16.840

I mean, Indian customers at Indika were… we had some that were really complaining about the prices and then we had some that just, that they loved the food. And we had some like customers that became such dedicated regulars at Indika that I mean you could—I know their

01:13:16.880 - 01:13:26.590

kids well, I’ve—we’ve done weddings for their kids. Kids, we’ve done graduations for their kids or their grandkids like there are some people we just know so well because they come so much.

01:13:27.130 - 01:13:37.650

And they bring their clients, they bring their family, they come for—for festivals, they just come for everything, to the restaurant. So, I think it was more of a um

01:13:40.070 - 01:13:53.160

a transition with what we did. I don’t feel like uh… I feel like everything I did at the time was like a natural move. Like I wasn’t, like I never like had some big goals that I was trying to

01:13:53.160 - 01:14:09.550

achieve. I kind of went with the flow, and I wanted to cook what I remember eating as a kid. So I was always… that was always on my mind like, “What am I going to do next?” And uh… So… And what happened is with opening Indika, it was such a like a…

01:14:10.110 - 01:14:20.770

I had—I had more of a formal menu there. And what I missed the most about India was the street food. So at Pondicheri I wanted to do street food. So the menu there was like different there, you know, there was like much more

01:14:20.770 - 01:14:31.240

like street food friendly, you know. Uh huh. Yeah. Um, how do you t—uh… like, come up with your recipes? Do you first draw from

01:14:32.940 - 01:14:48.740

a—another source and then modify it? I mean, yeah, I… I know of… by now I’ve developed enough expertise in the field that I know all the classic foods, how to make them.

01:14:50.180 - 01:15:02.090

And then I think about how to change them, like okay—and what I don’t like about them. So to me there’s, nothing is sacred in food. Like food is an evolving subject. I don’t think of “Oh, I have to do it this way because my grandmother did it this way.”

01:15:02.130 - 01:15:14.170

I’m like, “I’m going to do it a different way.” So I’ve never had any like loyalty to tradition with food. I feel like I’m willing to compromise that immediately in the interest of making it better, you know, or

01:15:14.450 - 01:15:26.030

the way I want it to be. So I wanted to, I—I basically messed with the way things are done in India. Also, you know, there’s a—to be fair, Indian cuisine is a very loose cuisine—cuisine.

01:15:26.830 - 01:15:40.960

It’s not like… there’s nothing regimented about it. People have their own versions of everything and I kind of came up with my own version of everything else. So… Uh huh. So there’s uh… ‘cause, at least in Chinese food, there is always a

01:15:40.960 - 01:15:52.420

lot of like, debate about “Oh, what is the right way to do this thing?” Yeah, I noticed that, and I think in India, there isn’t as much of it, or to me, that’s noise I ignore.

01:15:53.140 - 01:16:11.960

Yeah I’m not gonna… and sometimes I’m surprised at that ‘cause like I know the lady that owns um, uh Mala Sichuan and I ate there last night and I feel that whenever I talk to her, she’s like “Oh no, we follow the exact tradition of uh, uh, you know, of

01:16:11.980 - 01:16:22.530

Chengdu the province where the food is from.” I’m like, “Why don’t you change it?” “Oh no, we would never change it.” So she looks at me like I’m crazy with suggesting that. And I was like, “But that’s what life is about.

01:16:23.020 - 01:16:34.850

Like, you should be changing it.” Um, but um yeah, at least for me, that was not something that I even gave it a second thought, that, “Oh, I’m going to change this…” I just changed it.

01:16:34.940 - 01:16:48.240

That was it. Even at home, I think—but I was also… to retract, whenever I cooked at home for all those years for my kids and my husband, I never cooked the same thing every day. Or even twice. I wanna do something new every single day.

01:16:48.700 - 01:16:57.750

Like there was no repre—repetition. There was no, there was nothing my kids say, “Oh mom. You should make this.” Because they just—I cooked and they ate and that was it. Like they couldn’t even keep up.

01:16:58.210 - 01:17:11.190

They couldn’t even keep up, yeah. Because there was no like, “You must make this thing.” Like, they always wanted, you know, chicken or meat, but at the time we had a lot of like you know, meat and chicken and fish but it was a new preparation every day.

01:17:11.820 - 01:17:21.770

Uh huh. Um so then, some like writers and news reporters and things have described Pondicheri as exotic. So how do you feel about… ?

01:17:21.770 - 01:17:34.450

I don’t understand why! I don’t care. You know, I honestly don’t—when people use “fusion” I get irritated. I’m like, because to me fusion to me suggest I’ve taken Indian food and American food and fused or Indian and Chinese food and fused it, and I haven’t done

01:17:34.500 - 01:17:44.170

that. I’ve just taken Indian food outside the box. Like, the word fusion used to really irritate me, and I’m like “Why do they call it fusion?” But it’s actually, it’s stopped—it doesn’t bother me any more.

01:17:44.260 - 01:17:55.290

Like you can call it whatever you like, long as you’re going to eat there, that’s all that matters. . So… Ok. Uh, and—yeah, so what kind of reaction do you ideally want to evoke?

01:17:55.500 - 01:18:05.610

I just want people to say they love the food and that’s it. And... but you know, what’s interesting is a lot of Indians come, they’re like “Oh, this is like the way my mom used to cook.” Or this all… they say

01:18:05.610 - 01:18:19.250

like just—they love what I’ve changed from the way their mom used to cook. I’ll—I’ll never forget this one time, I was sitting on the patio, there was this young couple sitting… they were, I think college students, or just recent graduates of the University of Houston.

01:18:19.790 - 01:18:32.130

They were eating, and the guy got so excited, the husband, or the gentleman. He’s… called his mom right away, and he’s like, “Mom. For the first time, I ate a meal that is almost as good as yours.” But you have to

01:18:32.130 - 01:18:40.550

say—He’s like, “I’m going to say almost as good because I don’t want you to feel bad!” and I was just laughing and he’s—he’s like, he wanted to talk to me. He wanted me to talk to his mom to tell her who I was.

01:18:40.550 - 01:18:54.870

I was like, “This is crazy, talking to this woman I’ve never met and living in this town I’ve never been to.” But he was that excited about it… so. Do you remember what the mom said? Yeah, she just, I don’t know, she said something really like nondescript.

01:18:54.930 - 01:19:05.010

But—but what was interesting was that he got that excited about it. When he was like, “Oh my god.” So… Uh, what dishes are the best sellers?

01:19:07.010 - 01:19:23.440

Uh… Samosas, which really aren’t even truly Indian because they actually came via Persia. Um uh butter chicken, which really is not really Indian, it came via uh you know the

01:19:23.740 - 01:19:37.140

colonial—colonialism of India. Uh, but lately I feel more of my like uh… I think it’s—I think people like to order what they have

01:19:37.650 - 01:19:48.030

had before. So familiarity is a very important uh, distinction when people order. They’re like, “Oh! I know what a samosa looks like.” It’s like predictable. So we sell a lot of those.

01:19:48.810 - 01:20:00.800

I wish we sold more of the dishes that I love, and I’m trying to promote those and get people to know what that is. So, I never promote—I never promote samosas, butter chicken I’m like, that' s going to sell anyway. I want to

01:20:00.800 - 01:20:11.200

promote things that to me are far more interesting. So… Like what? Like, we have this curry on the menu called the Aviyal. It’s a South Indian vegetable stew.

01:20:11.880 - 01:20:25.300

Then I have this appetizer called khandvi, it’s a really uh, very traditional Gujarati dish. Uh, I have pani puri, which is a common street food from India, and I think pani puri is fantastic. And people that eat it just—

01:20:25.400 - 01:20:39.520

Indians just love it, but uh, for the Americans they’re like, “What the hell is this?” You know, they’re just—they’re very—they’re a little strange those foods but they’re super tasty and super interesting to me. Yeah. So how can you encourage more people to

01:20:40.210 - 01:20:53.870

order them? I don’t know how to. I think I just have to do more uh promotion or more um social media about those foods as opposed to um… uh… uh… I don’t know, I feel like um um

01:20:58.540 - 01:21:13.520

I—I try to train my service to talk—So really it’s about training my team to talk about those things to people. But in the end, people look for familiarity on a menu, you know, so um… So no, I mean I—It’s this slow— I don’t think Indian

01:21:13.520 - 01:21:27.120

food has hit its stride in America yet. I think it’s still like… It’s not as popular as Vietnamese or Chi— Japanese or Chinese is… I think it’s still making its way to that place. Hopefully, when it does, people will really know what Indian food is.

01:21:27.120 - 01:21:41.540

You know, it won’t be like this “It’s all a bunch of spicy curry” kind of talk people often do. Yeah. But then, um, like when a food becomes trendy, I feel like people still don’t really know what

01:21:42.100 - 01:21:56.690

it is. True! True! Um, and I don’t think Indian food is trendy. I think people, I feel like maybe 50, 60% of the people in Houston will not cross my threshold because they think they don’t like

01:21:56.750 - 01:22:07.000

curry. And they don’t really know what that means, they just think that they don’t like curry. Which usually means that they don’t—They’ve had a spicy version of a dish somewhere that they haven’t liked

01:22:07.080 - 01:22:17.950

or some of their family cooked a dish that was um… uh super uh… you know, a prepared curry powder at a grocery store that was probably stale and old.

01:22:18.450 - 01:22:29.520

And then they’re like, “I don’t like curry.” So, you know you have kind of realize that well curry actually just means the sauce. It doesn’t mean a spice, it just—a curry is just made with a bunch of spices.

01:22:29.850 - 01:22:44.200

And they can all be different every time. So… uh. Yeah, it’s a hard nut to crack, you know, I feel like the Britishers really uh took to Indian food like big way, but the Americans haven’t yet.

01:22:45.050 - 01:22:59.290

So… Interesting. Uh, what’s a dish that… on the menu that really did not work out? I mean there’s been a few over the years, um… Let me think… a dish that just did not work out…

01:22:59.290 - 01:23:20.070

Hm… Bitter melon. At Indika, I had stuffed bitter melon, and people were saying “Bitter melon, no thank you.” But then I would used to really force my servers to sell it. I’m like, “Come on. If you sell it, I’m gonna give you guys a drink at the end of the

01:23:20.070 - 01:23:30.050

day.” And it was the cheapest thing on the menu, so I wasn’t looking to make money, I just wanted people to try something new. And then I started putting it on a tasting menu, then people were like “Oh, this is delicious.” So, only when they were forced

01:23:30.050 - 01:23:41.820

to eat it that they love it, so. Like Americans have a very simple palette; they don’t like foods that are bitter or spicy or different or pungent, you know. They just want like a very simple sweet

01:23:41.820 - 01:23:53.450

salty taste. And I was into some much more complex flavors than that. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so the um Ayurveda again

01:23:54.310 - 01:24:10.870

how does that— So that kind of came into my life via yoga. Because in the I think around the late 80’s um, I got into like exercising and then I learned about yoga became—began

01:24:11.810 - 01:24:25.900

to be pop—or no, I began to hear about yoga in Houston in the I think mid to late 80s. And at first I was like, “What is this yoga they’re teaching here?” And then I finally went to a class, I’m like, “Oh, I like this.” So, then I began

01:24:25.930 - 01:24:40.850

to really become a yoga enthusiast, as an Indian American kind of living here. So then with yoga came, you know ayurveda kind of came hand in hand with it so over the years I began to get interest and I began to realize you know

01:24:40.850 - 01:24:52.680

that I don’t… I didn’t like the way I was eating; I never liked going to doctors and just popping pills. You know, but that just seemed like the norm, so I did that. And when I discovered oh, there was a better way

01:24:53.770 - 01:25:06.860

then you know food kind of became a bigger interest for me. So… uh, and you know Ayurveda really was not that well known in the 80’s even in US or in India. It think the interest of

01:25:06.940 - 01:25:21.880

Ayurveda has come up in the last I would say, twenty years or so, more than it has, uh than it did then. It was around, but it wasn’t that popular. And now, it’s becoming mainstream, but it definitely wasn’t in the

01:25:23.150 - 01:25:35.520

80’s or the 90’s. Yeah. Uh, so are you trying to promote Ayur—Ayurveda or just trying to… I’m just trying to… I’m not trying to promote, but I definitely feel like it’s such a you know it’s such

01:25:35.520 - 01:25:53.470

an old science and people always ask me that… And I—I feel it is like a very, a tough um a tough thing to understand. And it took me like many years of reading about Ayurveda to really understand what they were talking about with all the doshas and why you should eat a

01:25:53.470 - 01:26:06.170

certain way. And then when I got it, I totally got it. I’m like, “Okay. I understand, and it totally makes sense.” So on a personal level, I follow the eating plan of ayurveda and I feel like I’m really like at my strongest self for the

01:26:06.170 - 01:26:20.970

most part, you know. Because I’m able to follow the basic rules of Ayurveda, I feel like its a very strong um, compelling um, science. Like you know it was developed five thousand years ago, and a lot of the medicine

01:26:20.970 - 01:26:38.240

around the world has come from there. Uh, I was told that even like Zen was from… came from something from India, there’s some Chinese medicine actually originated from India with a trail between India and China, so I feel that there is a lot of intelligence in Ayurveda

01:26:38.240 - 01:26:51.560

that is like tremendously powerful, and I’m just kind of playing with learning what all that is. And how I can apply that in modern life. Mhm. And then, you recently

01:26:51.560 - 01:27:03.500

opened a Pondicheri in New York. Yes. Uh so how has that been different from Houston? Well, it, it was different from Houston not in necessarily—it was definitely a different market. And a

01:27:03.500 - 01:27:17.890

different um, uh, uh, logistics, you know the city was different. But more than that, for me on a personal level I had a really difficult time because within a month of opening it, and

01:27:17.890 - 01:27:29.850

the opening process was very painful we just found the whole industry of construction there to be very like gnarly and not trustworthy and they did things the shouldn’t have done, they delayed us, and it was pretty awful that

01:27:29.850 - 01:27:42.600

whole process, but within a month of opening, the restaurant, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. And that kind of took a huge turn in my life, so I had to you know come back to Houston, and he

01:27:42.600 - 01:27:56.320

was in the hospital for like two years off and on, trying—I mean, he was diagnosed with stage four, so and he passed away last August. So, and then I had a lot of injuries at the time, so, it’s been a really difficult time

01:27:56.320 - 01:28:07.980

for me personally, the last three years. So I feel I view things a little differently because I mean when you have to go through all these challenges, suddenly everything just seems really difficult. So I feel like I’m slowly coming out of it, but it’s been a very tough

01:28:08.550 - 01:28:22.060

the last three years for me. Yeah. Um, so like all those personal challenges, how do you think that changed you? I mean they changed me to become stronger and uh, somehow

01:28:23.680 - 01:28:39.260

you know kind of get… become more of a… I became less uh, I feel like I touched into my own spiritual self, in these last three or four years in a way I never did before where I feel like I was always very dependent on other

01:28:39.350 - 01:28:52.910

people, and now I’ve become very independent, I’m really… I—I was kind of terrified when my husband died, I was like… Because I had never lived alone, I had went from being a daughter to a wife to a girlfriend to

01:28:53.120 - 01:29:04.710

a wife again, and always being a mom for a large part of that, so I had never ever lived alone. So my first time in my life, and I’m in my 50’s, and I’m living alone.

01:29:05.300 - 01:29:16.220

So then I was like, I’m probably going to be really lonely. But, I cannot wait to be at home, and I love being at home alone. So I’m like, “Okay, this is a little bit too much fun being alone.” So, it’s a new experience for me, I’m enjoying

01:29:16.220 - 01:29:29.650

it. So yeah… Do you have any pets? No, but my—my son who lives in town has two, and whenever he goes on a business trip, he deposits them with me so I have these two little dogs that I have right now at home that I end up taking care of.

01:29:29.650 - 01:29:38.600

But I don’t… and he keeps saying, “Mom, I’m going to get you a dog.” I’m like, “Don’t you dare. I don’t want a dog. If I want a dog, I would get my own dog.” I don’t want a pet. I don’t want to be responsible for anything else.

01:29:39.150 - 01:29:50.430

I mean being responsible for my businesses is enough. I don’t want pets. So… but I do have his. I can always borrow his whenever I want. So. Mhm, yeah. Do you think that Houston, the

01:29:50.660 - 01:30:00.020

environment of Houston, contributed to the success of Pondicheri? Absolutely. Houston is a very diverse city and they’re very open to new cultures. And like, I found

01:30:00.020 - 01:30:14.270

Houston to be a very welcoming, open culture. Totally. Not only that, I found it to be very um… you know, they would love spicy food. They didn’t uh, resist the, “Oh, this is too spicy, cut it down.” Like, in

01:30:14.270 - 01:30:28.610

fact what was interesting was when I opened Indika, in the first five years, I had more complaints from Indians, saying, “Oh, this food is too spicy.” And I’m like, “Really?” And I didn’t think my food was that hot, I feel like I’ve never liked hot food, I just like food that’s really flavorful.

01:30:29.160 - 01:30:36.850

But the Americans were like, “Give us more. Give us like, spicy sauces.” And I was like, “Wow.” ‘Cause they’d been used to Mexican food. So they—it breaks them really well.

01:30:37.040 - 01:30:51.680

Mhm. And it’s kind of like a point of competition. Yeah, it can be. For like the Britishers, it has been. For the Americans… and I don’t want to get into that because I’m not trying to give you the hottest curry you’ll ever eat ‘cause that’s

01:30:51.680 - 01:31:04.130

not what Indian food is. And the vindaloo was created by the, you know, Britishers, or the Portuguese when they were in uh, Goa. So it’s not like—and Indians don’t like really hot foods, we just like

01:31:04.770 - 01:31:13.640

flavorful food and it’s a little bit hot. So… I never remember eating food that I had trouble, you know, managing as a kid. We just didn’t eat food with that much chili.

01:31:14.720 - 01:31:30.410

So… Mhm. Um… so what had been the greatest challenges in running Pondicheri? Um, my greatest challenge has been my last four years. You know, I’ve always had a lot of family to

01:31:30.410 - 01:31:48.840

depend on, and my kids kind of got… you know, went off to their colleges and their careers, and then I was married. I married for the second time, um, uh I got a divorce in 1980-19 um… no, in 2002,

01:31:49.550 - 01:32:05.190

I got a divorce. And then I remarried in 2012. So for me, losing my partner was probably my biggest challenge. And… but now, I realize that it was something that I was okay with, you know. But it

01:32:05.190 - 01:32:22.250

seemed like a really hard thing at the time because I was always so used to having people around me. So I felt a little bit like, “Oh gosh, I have to figure this out alone.” And that seemed really scary and daunting. Uh huh. And what are your hopes for Pondicheri and your career in the future?

01:32:22.570 - 01:32:34.390

Well, my future is all about products. So I’m actually developing product lines that I want to… and I want to get into fabrics because India has the most amazing textiles. I’ve always been obsessed with Indian textiles.

01:32:35.540 - 01:32:45.760

So… I’m starting a little company with scarves soon and I’m gonna start a product—I mean, I’ve got products at the restaurant, upstairs at the Bake Lab I have a lot of the products that I’m selling.

01:32:46.260 - 01:32:59.550

But I want to take those to market, so I’m working on a plan for that. Okay! And just your career long term? Just always in food? I want to cook—I wanna—I wanna always be in food, yeah. I wanna cook until the day I die, that’s

01:32:59.550 - 01:33:10.530

my plan. Because cooking is something we all have to do every day. Or we could do every day. So I wanna be doing that. So… yeah. Uh, so then moving onto

01:33:11.070 - 01:33:35.630

more like general questions about identity, um what struggles did you have in finding your cultural identity in both India and the US if any? I honestly did not have any trouble in finding my cultural identity. I as a very proud Indian from day

01:33:35.630 - 01:33:47.870

one, and I never changed my stance on that. I never apologized for being Indian, I never felt like I had to explain it to anybody. I mean people in US asked me some really stupid questions, like, “Oh,did you

01:33:48.350 - 01:34:03.970

grow up in mud huts?” and “Did you have cars in India?” and they thought that India was some really, you know, so… I would get irritated by people who asked me that, I’m like, “You need to know a little more about other countries.” So I found—I would find the ignorance of Americans really

01:34:03.970 - 01:34:17.030

annoying, um and it’s funny in Canada, I did not find… no Canadian never asked me that. I was asked those questions more in the US than I was ever in Canada. So… um but I didn’t really feel like I had to

01:34:17.900 - 01:34:33.890

define my—I was just who I was and I never tried to be anyone else. Mhm. Um, how about like as you’ve lived for so many years in America, did your identity slowly become more Indian-American?

01:34:35.870 - 01:34:45.820

Yeah, definitely. And you know it was a very subconscious transition. It wasn’t a conscious one. I uh… I’ve always been very adaptable, so whenever I’m in a new situation, I

01:34:45.820 - 01:34:57.990

adapt really well. So I never get stuck in old ideas, I’m always willing to adapt and change. So that, you know also because as a kid I moved around so much that we always had to come into a new school and

01:34:59.030 - 01:35:11.730

um, I didn’t find the adapting here to be difficult. Um, so… yeah I mean I—I can’t say that I had any challenges uh, because I was

01:35:11.730 - 01:35:27.230

Indian or I… I didn’t ever walk into a room, a building, a shop, or a school thinking “Oh, I’m Indian. I wonder what people are going to think about me?” That never went through my brain. So… So, if you had to use like, five

01:35:27.280 - 01:35:39.350

words to define yourself, what would they be? Oh… Ambitious. Uh, organized. Lazy. I can be very lazy.

01:35:39.920 - 01:35:51.810

Um, creative. I know I’m very creative. Uh, I mean that just comes through my brain constantly. Uh… I don’t know what's the fifth word…

01:36:00.200 - 01:36:11.640

Uh, honest. I feel like I’m an honest person. You know. Um, not always, but for the most time— for the most part I am. So… I like to sleep well at night. So… Yeah.

01:36:12.990 - 01:36:28.790

Yeah, uh so… like when I ask that question, I always assume that people are going to say something about their culture, but it never happens. Yeah, no, I—I identify myself as just being a human being more than being an Indian or

01:36:28.790 - 01:36:43.510

being an American. And I feel like you know we’ve driven… we’ve—we’ve got too many boundaries in this world, I don’t need to increase those boundaries at all. And I don’t agree with… like I’m not a supporter of any kind of politics that makes

01:36:44.660 - 01:37:03.000

divisions more uh stronger. I feel like divisions should be broken down rather than uh, um, created so… I don’t care whether people are you know from what culture, I feel like all cultures have so much to offer,

01:37:07.130 - 01:37:21.640

so… Uh huh. Um, but… like given that, do… uh what makes you feel most Indian? What makes me feel most Indian? The way I smell sometimes?

01:37:21.780 - 01:37:34.700

Because I’m always around spices and I smell like a big onion. And you know, surrounded by like spices and some really smelly spices. So really, just being around food makes me feel Indian because I know

01:37:34.730 - 01:37:45.490

that’s my— my root. You know, that’s what I know best. How about uh, most American? What you mean by that? Like, what makes you feel most American?

01:37:46.340 - 01:37:58.840

Oh, what makes me feel most American? Um, the feeling of freedom. Like in America, there’s a lot of freedom, and I feel like what I‘ve achieved in my life so far, I could never

01:37:58.840 - 01:38:09.830

have achieved this in India. Because there were too many restrictions on women at the time. So… so yeah I guess the feeling of being free.

01:38:09.920 - 01:38:28.650

There’s a—you know… there’s a… this country has a lot of things that are great about it and it… you… India had at the time a very corrupt government that it’s gotten much better now but still… I don’t agree with the way the government is in India now because they are

01:38:29.190 - 01:38:42.740

really targeting the minorities and I’m… that upsets me as to how—I feel like I don’t agree with any kind of marginalization of any kind. I feel like there should be no explanation, no reason for that. So I never, I never

01:38:43.100 - 01:38:58.000

think that’s a good idea. Anywhere. Uh and… did you ever uh think about like, what aspects of your heritage you want to pass onto your children? Uh yeah!

01:38:58.640 - 01:39:11.510

I think about that more and more now that I wouldn’t before. In fact uh, I feel like I want them to understand as one of the oldest and most beautiful cultures of the world, and there is a lot of knowledge in India that… to glean from.

01:39:11.510 - 01:39:23.930

And I want them to kind of be aware of that. Like, I mean the whole thing about meditation, yoga, the way we eat, and all this has come from India. And I feel like India hasn’t been given enough credit for that and I want my kids to

01:39:23.930 - 01:39:39.910

be proud of who they are, not that—And they are! They both understand that um… So, nothing to apologise for, you know? Mhm. But then for them growing up in America, has there been any conflict of like… do you agree

01:39:39.910 - 01:39:49.840

on how Indian or American they should be? I let them be who they are. My daughter is much more of an Indian-American. My son is American

01:39:49.840 - 01:40:04.580

with a tiny bit Indian. He just, he doesn’t… I mean, he went to India every year, till he was about eleven, uh or ten. And then he went back when he was about fifteen or sixteen; he hasn’t been back since then.

01:40:04.730 - 01:40:13.130

He doesn’t really want to go. He’s twenty-eight now. And he keeps saying, “Well Mom, I’m just going to go with you one day.” But we haven’t actually done it yet. ‘Cause he doesn’t see any reason

01:40:13.130 - 01:40:19.600

to go. Yeah. Which makes me a little sad. But it’s just the way he is, you know. And I can’t do much about it.

01:40:19.820 - 01:40:34.530

Yeah. Uh, can you think of any reason why there’s a difference between your kids? I mean they’re just, no, they’re just both different individuals. And uh… my daughter went to India

01:40:34.840 - 01:40:46.190

the same um, times he did. And what’s interesting is at the end of both their colleges, I wanted them both to go spend a summer in India. And my daughter went, my son refused to go, he’s like, “I don’t want to

01:40:46.250 - 01:40:58.430

go.” So he didn’t go. So he’s just, for him, not only does he love American culture, he loves Texas. So he more of like a Texan than and American than an Indian. So, he’s just not interested.

01:40:58.550 - 01:41:08.420

And I think he’s also very young, and he’s very ambitious and just wants to go out there and earn a lot of money and be successful. And going to India is going to get in the way of his life. So he doesn’t see any reason to go.

01:41:10.370 - 01:41:27.580

Ok. Uh, so for the last couple questions, what um is your proudest achievement? My children. Yeah. Being a mom. I think they are both really smart, beautiful amazing kids and I’m really proud of them. I mean they’re… everything else kind of falls off and I

01:41:27.610 - 01:41:41.210

always told myself that as a mother no matter how successful I was at any kind of uh… you know whether I was a cook or… would be meaningless because I had fairl—I had failed my kids. So uh, I guess being a mother,

01:41:43.250 - 01:41:58.830

yeah. And so if you’re great grandchildren were to listen to this in the future, is there any advice you would like to pass on? Um… no, just be yourself. Like, don’t try to be like anybody else, you know.

01:41:59.820 - 01:42:10.320

Be proud of who you are. No, no apologies needed. Ok, so that was the end of the interview. Thank you so much! You’re welcome, thank you.