# FINEDININGINDIAN S T A R C H E F PAGE 5
Q. How did things in El Bulli turn out for you?
B E I N G A S I A ' S N O. 1: A H A T- T R I C K T H A T I S W R I T T E N I N H I S T O R Y
Bon Bon White chocolate crispy shell with surprising green chilli and mint spice water
Inspired by pan puri street food of India
I was in Spain, in the lab of El Bulli, for 3 months. The techniques I learned there helped make my roots stronger. You need to have a strong base. From there, you can emerge and move forward. That will take you to places. Adapt the techniques but create your own identity. You can copy once or twice. That will do extremely well for a few months. But if you don ' t have your own creativity then you will die out very fast. This formula worked for him really well. And it helped him.
Q. What would you have done as a chef if you were not influenced by El Bulli?
I would have found inspiration from somewhere else. You are born with the passion to question how you are growing up, what you are doing and what you want to do. If you don ' t question your purpose of doing things then you will not push your boundaries. So, that would have got me somewhere else. Or I would have created something entirely on my own. Ha... ha! It ' s quite possible. Whether it would be as successful or not, that we don’ t know. But only a series of failures can describe your success. Only someone who has zero fear of failure can succeed. I have no fear of failure. I learn from it and try again.