You want to know what success sounds like? Then listen to Sanjeev Kapoor in his frank and honest podcast with Mark Manuel for PeepingMoon.com. The man who put Indian cuisine on the world gastronomy map, admits that he wanted to be “the Sanjeev Kapoor” on his very first day in the kitchen. In a chat that takes Sanjeev and Mark back 32 years, since when they are close friends, the master chef who like Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan, and Sachin Tendulkar is one of India’s most recognised faces, says that it was a decision he made on his first day at work.

The podcast, presented by Reliance Digital, reveals a time in the kitchen wizard’s career when he was just a junior chef who rode up to the Centaur Hotel Juhu Beach on an Ind-Suzuki 100 cc bike. Then it was a Maruti 800. But by the time he was 27, the Hotel Corporation of India had promoted Sanjeev to the Executive Chef’s post at Centaur. There was no looking back from there. “I was lucky to become Executive Chef at a young age of a large hotel. And that is what I wanted. It was a decision I made on my very first day in the kitchen. I wanted to make sure I reach the top of my profession faster than anybody else,” Sanjeev says.

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