Chef Suvir Saran on peace of chaos, recovering health wise, and gratitude for ‘urban jungle’
Chief Suvir Saran of New Delhi and New York, yet of neither, has perennially been “an outsider looking in”. It is perhaps unsurprising then that he likes to “go outside to come back in.” The Indian boy who left New Delhi for New York in the heady, capitalism drenched 90s where he went from cooking Indian food for his friends there to earning the first Michelin star for an Indian (and non-French or Italian) cuisine restaurant in North America with his legendary restaurant Devi.
The man of two nations who came back to the Capital, after running a farm and homestead in the American countryside, and recovering from a debilitating stroke, has re-found his home and habitat on his roof garden. “We have 11 varieties of fruit trees and various flowers and plants so it is a riot of colours and the birds make a ruckus, and I find my peace in the cacophony of nature,” shares the chef and writer, who uses the space he calls his urban jungle to “look within, to look ahead, to decide the goals I want to achieve and how to achieve them, as well as the battles I should no longer fight.
I was never Indian enough for my country and I am never White/American enough for the US, but then I always enjoy being where I don’t fit in and clash with my surroundings,” muses Saran, noting, “It’s the same with the garden with the bright flowers and chirping birds and rustling leaves all against the faint backdrop of Delhi traffic. I find my peace in that chaos.”
Saran prides himself on his ability to both zone in and tune out. “I could be in the middle of a crowded party and if I am focusing, then I will hear everything and have the memory of an elephant, but if I am occupied with my thoughts I’ll be blank and won’t absorb a thing.” It is these senses Saran is grateful for, after a series of mini-strokes and concussions he suffered from in the US left him blind in one eye and afflicted him with aphasia, which affected his language and motor skills, and caused him to lose chunks of his memory.
“Since I have returned to India to recover and recuperate, I have found so much to be grateful for and rediscovered my love for my country and my countrymen,” says Saran, adding that he is lucky to have a space like the garden to retreat to from the demands of city living. Back in New York state, Saran has the American Masala Farm which he runs with his partner, and there again nature is his go-to place to contemplate in peace (and noise).
for dinner at home
While current circumstances (Covid) have kept him from returning to his “home at heart”, Saran still manages all that he can remotely, not least of which is the online media that relies on his erudition. Indeed, apart from his writing, Saran has quite the cameraman’s eye for the details, and photography is among his many passions, be it zooming into the details of the flowers freshly blooming atop his Delhi roof or widening his panorama to show off the sun dappling across the roof of his American farm or capturing the silvers and greys of buildings of the cities betwixt them.
Ever the consummate stor y t e l l e r, Saran, who has also writt e n f o u r books, was in the midst of writing a 1000-page tome of recipes when he was struck. Having lost a great deal of his vision and movement for a long time, he has since steadily improved, and is busy with his own work as well as mentoring others. “I walk up to the garden and look around and am grateful to see and smell those flowers and hear those birds and pluck and taste the fruit, and remind myself of how lucky I and not to make a fuss and and learn some self-control. I usually forget all that when I am back downstairs and on the laptop, but then I can always go back up.”
WRITINGA BOUT FOOD
Saran, ever the immoderate, could spend 18 hours a day cooking or writing, and so it’s not a surprise that his year is packed with much of the same activities, as he notes, “I am really fortunate to have found a fantastic literary agent for India in Mita Kapur of Siyahi, and will be coming out with two books. One is a cookbook, while the other is a collection of essays and stories you can cook to and recipes you can read, with the former coming out next spring and the latter will come out late this year or early 2022.” He is also involved in a few hush-hush restaurant projects which will open to Delhi’s diners later this year. Watch this space for more.