Chef, writer and humanist extraordinaire Suvir Saran came to his SALA 2024 “A Slice of Life” session with VR Ferose, looking absolutely spectacular. In his words he was “in full drag,” wearing a gorgeous ivory and gold skirt, kurta and dupatta from Good Earth, a boutique in India. He accessorized with a stunning necklace made of lockets with the pictures of goddesses, and bright gold shoes. An extraordinary person in style, body and spirit, it is hard to take one’s eyes off of him when he’s in the room.
Such was his joie de vivre and exuberance that as he was greeting old friends (this writer included) and other attendees before the session began, he pointed out a small stain on his glorious outfit which was acquired from the seatbelt of the car in which he rode over. “Laga chunri mein daag,” he sang delightfully. And when the rapt audience asked for more, he proceeded to sit down and sing for a few minutes.
This exuberance kept the audience enthralled throughout his conversation with moderator VR Ferose who started by saying "Suvir’s introduction is complicated." Saran chimed in with “Suvir is complicated!” The session was named for Saran’s popular column for The Indian Express, “A Slice of Life.”
American Masala Farm
Saran recounted tales of his American Masala Farm in upstate New York that had high operating costs, two perfectly coiffed chickens called Tina Turner, producing eggs of high nutritional content. He spoke of slowly building community in an mostly industrial environment where much hate and bigotry was directed at him and his partner. Providing warm clothes to needy children and establishing adult literacy program, he slowly turned things around. His partner would say “’Till you know me, don’t hate me.”
Going to India “to die”
A series of concussions severely altered his day-to-day life. He was legally blind for 18 months. He had memory issues and a lot of fatigue. He became part of an NYU study where they wanted to study the human brain. Heeding his mother and partner who urged him to take a sabbatical from his three decades of life in the United States, he moved to India. He describes his slow recovery poetically: “A scorpion came into my brain and then came out.” He trained in music for 46 years, and singing not only brought back words, but also alleviates his pain. Talent and pain: these were recurring themes in the session.
Coming Out.
His account of growing up gay, feeling “othered” all the time was poignant. He recounted the story of living in Nagpur, where he would see dead bodies being carried for cremation, and he would think that he was one of them. He thought he was an aberration, condemned to live a terrible life, ending up like a corpse.
He credits his grandmother with urging him to come out. When Saran and his partner at the time flew out to San Francisco to meet his Naani Shanti, she said to him of his partner “He is not your roommate. He’s your lover. Tell your mother.” And to he did, learning that she was not surprised. He asked her if she ever knew, to which she replied “from the beginning.” When he asked why she didn’t say anything, she replied, no mom wants her child to be different.
A Chef’s Beginnings
Saran started cooking at the age of five in his mother’s kitchen. Sunita Saran held dinner parties and meticulously kept a diary of what she made and what people relished. After a stint at the JJ School of Arts in Delhi (“Horrible place! All they focused on was how Suvir is different!”), Saran came to New York to study graphic design. While supporting himself as a stock boy at the Met, he met Hillary Clinton, and gave her and Bill Clinton a tour of the Met.
Among his mentors on the journey to becoming a chef was journalist and author Elisabeth Bumiller (familiar to Indian readers as author of “May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons.”) Working by day, he would cook by night, and then rise early to bake. In a few years, he had cooked every recipe in three iconic cookbooks, including the Larousse Gastronomique considered by some “the world’s greatest culinary encyclopedia”.
Rasoi to Michelin
This passion for cooking led his employer Henri Bendel to do him a favor -- he fired Saran and gave him 2 years severance to pursue his longings. Saran opened Rasoi, a cooking school, went on to open Amma, Devi (which won a Michelin star), and Tapestry (“a labor of love”) in New York City. He also recounted the disappointment of a failed “iconic restaurant” effort in San Francisco, which fell victim to bureaucracy. Saran spoke of celebrity patrons: Martha Stewart who stepped over snow and puddles to come eat at Amma, and Shashi Tharoor who ate there three times a week. Eschewing the ubiquitous Butter Chicken dish, he would urge his patrons to try different foods and preparations, to broader their palate. In 2003, he was the first chef to put bhel puri on the Indian menu.
Food for Saran is about community. Calling himself “an inconvenient truth teller”, he recounted telling his patrons “Don’t come to my restaurant more than once a month. Eat at your table, eat in your community.”
What Sustains Us
Revealing that he himself did not speak until he was 5, Saran invited moderator Ferose, father of a nonverbal autistic child, to share his son’s poem. This moving and beautiful poem by Vivaan was very much in keeping with the spirit of this session: poignant and eloquent, touching one’s heart, allowing a pause in the breakneck pace of daily life, helping us reflect on what is really important to each of us.
The session ended with music. Saran obligingly accommodated an audience member’s request to sing a few lines, and again the audience was mesmerized. A remarkable and fitting start to SALA 2024 and its theme “Plurality in Community.”
This article was published in India Currents on October 2, 2024.
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