Top-rated chef Vikas Khanna slams BBC after a controversial exchange over live TV. In an interview, a BBC anchor had questioned the background of the chef. He said Khanna’s “sense of hunger” came from India because Khanna grew up in a humble upbringing. To that, Khanna replied, “Not from India! My sense of hunger came from New York.”
Khanna, who was born in Amritsar, explained his roots, citing the culture of munificence in his hometown city. I am from Amritsar, everybody gets fed there in the langars,” he said of the communal meals served in temples. In fact, it was his early struggles in New York that taught him the meaning of hunger.
Vikas Khanna slams BBC, Indians troll BBC in comment section
Khanna worked at top-rated restaurants like Salaam Bombay before rising to fame at Junoon, a Michelin-starred restaurant in New York. The clip went viral in no time, and ‘Vikas Khanna slams BBC’ was trending everywhere. Scores of Indians thronged the comments section, making fun of the BBC and its insensitive questions and tone-deaf assumptions.
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The incident sparked a larger conversation about the portrayal of Indian success stories in Western media. Khanna’s career is the very definition of Global Success. Prior to his rise, in the U.S., Khanna worked with reputed Indian chains of hotels like Taj, Oberoi, and Leela. In New York, the MasterChef got prestige while working with the best chefs-one among them being Gordon Ramsay and Eric Ripert.
His Junoon restaurant acquires a Michelin star for six consecutive years. He also expanded his food empires in Dubai and New York City. As the controversy went on growing, Khanna’s words seemed to strike a chord in many, bringing to light deeper biases that at least some media outlets perpetuate. Yet amidst the backlash, the message couldn’t have been louder: hunger doesn’t have borders.
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