The Journey of "Vikas Khanna-A Heritage Of Fans" began in July 2013 when the image on back cover of the book was created by Sona Patel and Divya came up with idea of writing a book and suggested the title as well as a draft cover pic. We formed a group on Facebook to discuss the book but the Book was shelved as everyone had exams coming up.
Now came the month of September and then there was Chef Vikas' birthday two months later. In mid-September 2014, Manisha Jain suggested admin to create a group on hangouts where everyone could discuss birthday plans secretly and can keep it a surprise. Two days later, the group was formed which we later called Secret Eleven Team. We exchanged ideas about what we can do on Chef's birthday. Divya suggested about the book and everyone agreed immediately not knowing what will be the results. We planned what our book would be about, we then enquired about how could we upload and present the e-book to everyone. Then came the matter of getting book printed for Chef. We suspended the idea of printing till completion of book.
After everyone agreed to write the book, we discussed about what topics will the book have including one topic of TeamVikas. Then we divided topics into groups of two or three. The Topics and Who Wrote What are as Follows-:
Roots of the Master-chef- Rhea, Mehri & Ishani.
Start of the Culinary Dream- Manisha and Tanya
Masterchef in Every Home- Isha & Zahra
Culinary Journey into Scriptures- Divya & Rukhsar.
Born Humanitarian- Isha and Manisha.
Team Vikas- Admin and Jyoti.
We then began working on our respective topics with 20th October as the deadline to submit our work. And the work on the book begun...Endless discussions, exchange of ideas, pictures, information and everything through emails, hangouts, facebook, twitter DMs and whatsapp. The memorable days indeed. Finally, everyone was done with their works. The punctual secret eleven were all ready with their piece of works on Oct. 19th itself. We exchanged the documents through emails and read each other's work. Then exchanged words of appreciation on hangouts group. Then added one more topic we had missed while discussing. After its completion, someone came up with idea of adding some fun facts about Chef Vikas in the book to make it even more interesting. We wanted our book to look professional and thus kept addind everything that we could in appropriate places. Then at last we wrote a preface for our book.
Next came the compilation of book and editing. One member compiled and edited the book and other made the topics uniform throughout and uploaded as Ebook. Book was successfully uploaded as ebook on 26th Oct. until we discovered that it was searchable on google. Then we deleted and again uploaded as unlisted on Nov 8th.
After the successful uploading on 26th Oct we got back to the desire to present a printed special copy to Chef on his birthday. After enquiring and discussing a lot, Manisha Jain got the book printed. Then came issue where the Book launch will be held on 14th Nov. We someone enquired book launch will be in Delhi on 14th and thus the book was parcelled to Isha in Delhi. Unfortunately the Book appeared to be launched in Mumbai on 14th and book would be launched in Delhi on 15th. We were left with this sad news. But God always does everything for good. It was our good luck that Book launch in Delhi happened on 15th as because of the courier service's irresponsible behaviour, Book reached Isha on 14th in evening which we all had left hopes for thinking we lost our book because of them.
Finally the day arrived, when on 14th Nov we presented him Ebook at 12am, he Retweeted the tweet ensuring us he has seen our present. We were so happy seeing that. Next day we tweeted him that the hard copy of the book will reach you today through Isha and when Isha went to Book launch and presented him the book, he said,"mujhe pata tha aaj mujhe book milne wali hai." He loved our book and said it's Lovely. He showed the book to the audience present at Book launch. After knowing all this we were on cloud nine and he fueled our happiness when everyone next day woke up to his tweet that said, "I just finished reading Heritage of Fans. The BEST gift any human being can have, thx for encouraging me to create more art. Love V."
With this Our Happiness had no limits and we congratulated each other for our creation finally reaching its destination successfully.
Good Job Secret Eleven. I feel really proud being a part of it.
Written By
Admin
(Team Vikas)
