It could be a plot from one of the Bollywood movies she so loves. “I used to send faxes to Bakshish at the Taj hotel in Mumbai, where he was a kitchen management trainee, while I was a hotel management trainee with the Leela. I didn’t know anyone could read faxes and that they were being printed out at the executive chef ’s office,” says food and travel writer and photographer, Rupali Dean, nee Sabarwal, reflecting on a five year relationship and 25-year marriage to chef Bakshish Dean, who has his own vivid recollections of the time and subsequent actions of his boss, chef Hemant Oberoi, the grand old man of Taj hotel kitchens. “She would send all these mushy messages on the fax machine in the chef ’s office, which he would dutifully have put in a white envelope and delivered to the restaurant kitchen on the 22nd floor. One day, he told me to call Rupali to the hotel,” reminisces Bakshish.
“I went in, and chef Oberoi was so sweet. He said ‘beta, go down to HR and collect your appointment letter. I’ve spoken to the Leela and told them you are going to be joining us.’ I went in expecting to get scolded and instead got a job at the same place as Bakshish,” says Rupali, gleefully. Either Oberoi was running out of envelopes (and fax paper rolls), or he had an inkling that the two would make a good team. Life events have proved him right. Indeed, life was going to be rather eventful for the collegiate couple, who met when “I was in the first year at Institute of Hotel Management- Ahmedabad, and he was a third year. He ragged me back then, I’ve been ragging him ever since,” laughs Rupali. The couple got married and were working in Mumbai, but after Rupali’s father passed away, they moved to Delhi, where Bakshish took over the reins, er, steering wheel at the Orient Express in Taj Palace, while Rupali worked as a training manager with Choice hotels.
“After I had my daughter Akanksha, I decided that’s it, I want to be a housewife and not work. But three years later, we had another baby, who passed away. Eventually, friends and family urged me to do something. An uncle of ours was opening a restaurant and asked me to help him with it,” says Rupali. With help from Bakshish, she did just that, and at the end of it was an unexpected bonus. “We never expected anything, but he insisted on paying us after, calling it a guru dakshina. That’s when we thought why not work together in restaurant consulting,” she says. So, when Rupali was helping set up a Vietnamese restaurant it was Bakshish who got her in touch with a chef friend in Hoi An, and helped her with the menu. When he opened his latest restaurant, Padmanabham, she went down South to document the recipes, and helped with its promotion.
And, barring a period when Bakshish served as executive chef of The Park New Delhi, the two continue to collaborate over projects as varied as restaurants and pop-ups, to ingredient demonstrations and culinary programs. “We were supposed to go to Symbiosis in Pune in April, but that’s been cancelled,” said Rupali. Speaking of the present, how is the family coping? “I’ve been assigned to the kitchen, and am making breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rupali has enjoyed doing housekeeping since hotel school so she’s keeping occupied with that, while Akanksha [whose Masters course in Spain has been deferred] is doing the dusting and other odd jobs, which we have to force on her,” beams Bakshish. Happy families, they really are alike.