It pays to be unconventional

OFF HOURS/ FOODIE

A birthday is as good a time as any to bake a cake. However, after an extended hiatus from the kitchen, Harsha Bhatkal, director, Popular Prakashan, is decidedly apprehensive while handling an egg beater. His worry... the batter will splash. For he is tremendously house-proud, accountable for the purchase of all the art adorning the walls... Subhash Awchat, Laxma Goud and Manu Parekh dominating the view.

Bhatkal is the quintessential foodie. "I will eat anything," he says good-humouredly. His interest in food has even translated into him changing the order of his publishing business, the two categories of interest today are cookery and children's titles.

Popular Prakashan, which originally started as a retail book chain over 80 years ago and then morphed into a publishing house with its strengths in curriculum development, has gone through upheavals each time a new generation took charge. Bhatkal, for one, decided that academic niche publishing was not his thing. "I realised that to make money, books must be looked at as consumer products; marketing and distribution then becomes so much more easy," he says. The decision to publish Sanjeev Kapoor's Khazana of Indian Recipes in 1999 was an unforeseen windfall. They've since done 30 titles for the celebrity chef and sell a million copies each year.

Bhatkal's initiation into cooking came from his camping trips as a scouting enthusiast, venturing into the Sahyadri range with friends. "We didn't have to go very far; those were the days when Powai lake was a heavily forested area," he reminisces. So did they catch river trout and cook it over a campfire they built from rubbing stones together? Nothing quite so fanciful, unfortunately. "It was more like rice and vegetables that mom ready-prepared," he admits.

The birthday girl, Bhatkal's 17-year-old, walks in with a gaggle of giggling friends, and lets out a little gasp when she spots Daddy donning chef's hat. And to make the feat seem even more impressive, Bhatkal pulls off some impressive decorating.

Has Bhatkal actually learned anything from his company's tryst with cookery publishing? "Not really, except that in business it pays to be unconventional," he says. That's why he's trying to overcome the book distribution hurdle and is focussing on mass market titles that he can push through non-traditional sales channels. Popular Prakashan is also entering television production, and is due to announce a 13-episode Marathi serial co-production.

"Do you think I should add more chocolate chips?" he asks tentatively. He's far from tentative about the sustainability of his business though. "We're proud to be the truly 'Indian' publishing firm with the standards of an international publisher," he says.

The cake is consumed before the icing gets a chance to set, but nobody seems to care. Least of all the birthday girl, who, beneath that pretend-discomfiture, is delighted.