Vikas Khanna to present 16-kg cookbook to world leaders

Vikas Khanna's 16-kg book on cuisine for festivals and rituals of Indian communities will be unveiled at Cannes, after which the Michelin star chef will get 12 of its copies signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be gifted to world leaders.

The book titled "Utsav - A culinary epic of Indian festivals" will be showcased at Cannes on May 17 during the Cannes International Film Festival, which opens on May 13.

"I am gifting (the book) to Narendra Modi first before I take it to the world leaders because he is representing the Indian crown right now. The first book will go to him after I come back from America. I've spoken to an official from his office. I haven't spoken to him yet," Khanna told IANS.

"So, after that we will start giving the books to everyone (honourees). I want Mr. Modi to sign those 12 books which will be given to the Queen of England, the White House... I want the book to be a gift from him," he said.

"I will make sure I deliver them to the world leaders. The book will be launched worldwide on Diwali," added the Amritsar-born chef.

Written with pure gold ink, the over 1,000-page coffee table book, published by Bloomsbury Publishing, contains 1,000 recipes from 70 Indian festivals.

"The price of the book will start from eight lakh. You cannot go to any book store or Amazon store to purchase it initially, because it's an aspirational project. The first few copies have gold used in them... pure gold inks have been used for writing," Khanna said.

"It's a coffee table book...It comes in a large box which I call the 'cradle'. The book is approximately 1,200 large pages...so, if you talk about regular pages, it would be approximately 3,000 pages," he added.