Radhika Merchant recently tied a jalebi-shaped Rakhi to celebrity chef Vikas Khanna during a visit to his New York restaurant, Bungalow, with Anant Ambani and his family.
Khanna gave the Ambani family a warm welcome at the restaurant and decorated the space with flowers for their visit. The gathering took an emotional turn when Radhika tied a jalebi-shaped Rakhi on Khanna’s wrist. For a moment, I felt a part of me heal.” (Also Read: Nita Ambani gifts peacock brooch to TIME100 honorary chef Vikas Khanna in New York. Watch ) In the caption of the post, Khanna also spoke about his admiration for Anant and his work at Vantara. “What an amazing day. I have always admired and deeply respected Anant Ambani for his extraordinary work at Vantara. Beyond the scale of what he has created, I have always found him to be an incredibly compassionate human being, with a genuine love and commitment towards animals and their protection. Hosting Anant and his family at Bungalow meant the world to me,” Vikas Khanna wrote. He also described this Rakhi season as a period of remembrance. “This Rakhi season has been so much about remembrance for me with everyday guests tying so many rakhis on my wrist. It is about the people we love, what they leave behind, and how their presence continues to live within us,” he wrote. Thanking Radhika for the gesture, Khanna added, “Some moments cannot be planned. Some blessings simply arrive when you need them most. Thank you, Radhika, for a little thread that carried such an enormous meaning for me.
In a video shared on Instagram, the chef is seen cleaning the glass roof of Bungalow and arranging flower petals to spell “Vantara”, Anant Ambani’s animal welfare project. Sharing a glimpse of the special moment on Instagram , the chef said that the gesture was something he would “carry in my heart forever”. “The whole world knows what the name Radhika means to me,” Khanna wrote in his post. “A day of gratitude, remembrance, family and healing,” the chef concluded.
Reflecting on the moment, he said, “Today, when Radhika tied a small jalebi shaped Rakhi on my wrist, something inside me shifted.
