It is a testament to his growing popularity and influence globally that chef Vikas Khanna has been named by TIME Magazine in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The Indian chef cannot be happier that ‘curry boy’, once a pejorative, is now a badge of honour.
Speaking with PTI from New York, the celebrity chef called the honour ‘a very big moment for India’. Vikas Khanna was included in the list among visionaries in fashion, visual, literary, and culinary arts, alongside names like Ralph Lauren and Victoria Beckham. The list of 100 also includes actor Ranbir Kapoor, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, US President Donald Trump, world’s richest man Elon Musk, and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Vikas Khanna on making it to the TIME 100
While the list was made public on Wednesday, Vikas Khanna found out about it on March 23, the birthday of his late sister, Radhika Khanna.
“I felt that my sister is still fighting for me from up there. For them to pick up what they call us here, a curry boy and put it in the highest respected list in the world, this is a big deal,” he said.
The word curry has often been used in the West as a derogatory term, often as a slur for South Asians. Vikas Khanna added that now, it has become associated with pride and honour. “They use the word curry in derogatory terms, but I use it with pride. I feel that it’s something which our grandmothers fed us, and our body and brain functions on that. And today, most of the Indians are running the entire world. I have so many relatives here. All the kids would make fun of them or say this is smelling of curry. And now a curry boy gets to be on the stage where just a few selected people on the planet have walked,” the 54-year-old said.
Vikas Khanna runs a restaurant named Bungalow. In his profile for TIME, chef Eric Ripert called it a ‘a living expression of storytelling’. The award-winning chef wrote, “He carries his culture with immense pride, sharing the richness of Indian traditions while making them accessible and meaningful to a global audience.” Before Bungalow, Khanna ran Junoon in New York.
Vikas Khanna’s work in entertainment
The chef currently serves as a judge on MasterChef India. Apart from his culinary skills, he also made a Hindi film, The Last Colour, with Neena Gupta. Up next for him is another film, Imaginary Rain, about a New York chef. It stars Shabana Azmi and Prateek Babbar and has music by A R Rahman.
