Michelin Star Chef Vikas Khanna On Sikh Community's 'Dil Se Sewa' And Feed India Initiative

“Langar (community kitchen) in Gurdwara is a full circle. The person, who serves you, bends down and provides you food and the receiver takes it with two hands. And my grandmother used to say, if you want to have langar, you will have to go and cook as well. If you come here for the Prasad (offering), you can't just be walking away. You aren't exempt from your part in the cycle. You have to go back, clean and cook”, said, Vikas Khanna, Michelin star chef, restaurateur and humanitarian at the Dil Se Sewa telethon.

NDTV in collaboration with the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) has initiated a campaign ‘Dil Se Sewa, feeding millions' that focusses on the rich living tradition of food sharing as widely practised in ‘Langars' by the Sikh community. The campaign calls to contribute to help our langars feed people during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Chef Vikas Khanna who himself has been feeding millions of people in India through his ‘Feed India' initiative joined the campaign and spoke at length about serving food to people and about the Sikh community.

While sitting in New York, the Michelin star chef has been providing food to millions of people in India. Talking about how he manages it, Mr Khanna said,

Initially, I used to have a problem because when India wakes, it was time for me to go to sleep. I was extremely disoriented because I am extremely disciplined. So, I came up with the solution that I will change my whole body clock based on Indian timings.

Further talking about his initiative and elaborating on the work done so far, Mr Khanna said,

A few hours ago, we completed 18 million meals. It includes dry rations and cooked food. This has been challenging because of different requirements in different places. When we were feeding people in gas stations, it had to be cooked meals. Highways had to be cooked meals. Community centres, quarantine centres where cooking facilities are not available, we are providing cooked meals and places like old age homes, ashrams, leprosy centres, orphanages, where there are cooking facilities, we started doing dry rations which became easier for us.

Mr Khanna informed that the entire Feed India campaign is run on zero administrative costs. The team works only on brand collaborations and Mr Khanna himself takes regular reports. While going through pictures of Feed India, Mr Khanna saw a photo of a barefoot child who had come to collect food. The heart wrenching photo made him start a slipper drive as part of which almost two lakh slippers have been distributed. He said,

In Gurdwara, they take your slippers and then clean them and give it back to you. Somehow those small things stay in your mind. That missing slipper pinched me a lot. When I saw the photo, I tweeted and we initiated the work.

What started with the idea to provide a pair of slippers to one girl has now reached out to lakhs of people. The team has distributed almost 2 lakh slippers. 

All this is coming from the Sikh roots. So, thank you for instilling such high values in all our minds, signed off Chef Vikas Khanna.

Also Read: Be A Part Of Guru Sewa, Support Our Langars To Feed The Hungry During Coronavirus Pandemic