"Food Is the Greatest Blessing One Can Have!"

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1. Tell us about your background and journey.

I did my graduation in a Bachelor of Business Administration (Bba). While I was in college, at 18 years of age, I also joined my family’s jewelry business. And was also studying the Spanish Language from Spain’s embassy in Delhi. From there I got a contract in FIFA U17 World Cup, as a team coordinator – manager for the team of Chile.

This tournament was happening in India. There we had to travel several Indian states, so I took my DSLR along. From there I started my TRAVEL + FOOD blog on Instagram.

But soon I got more inclined towards food blogging only. And today, this is my full-time job, doing FOOD BLOGGING on Instagram, Facebook, and now creating videos on YouTube too!

2. When did you first decide that you wanted to create content and how did you start?

When I was in FIFA U17 world cup, coordinating – managing the team Chile, I started to click lots of TRAVEL & FOOD pictures from my DSLR, in several states. Soon I realized, this is what I’m good at.

So I learned a bit of photography from youtube and after a few months, I went to Goa on a Semi-solo trip (where my friends joined me later on after 3 days) to clear my head & try out this TRAVEL + FOOD blogging thing. But soon I realized that my followers liked my Food content more, so I decided to stick with my Food blogs only afterward.

3. Is vlogging and Instagram content creation a financially sustainable career?

Yes, it is, only if you are good at it. I believe, on social media, users can follow 2 types of accounts, first the celebrity accounts & second are the creative/talented people. So if someone is not a celebrity, and is a lot creative or talented, they surely can make it big on social media.

4. Who is your favorite creator and why?

Can’t really choose one, because I’m inspired by many creators. Initially, I got the inspiration to start a TRAVEL+FOOD themed Instagram account, from the @rusticbones (A travel photographer from the USA).

And then pretty soon I got a lot of inspiration from @he_cook_she_eat, @pizzawali, @thefoodattcker, and @yourfoodlab. All these creators have proved themselves that if someone is creative/talented, they can make it big just by pure hard work. That’s the biggest inspiration I get from all these creators every day!

5. How and where do you find inspiration to churn out content?

I believe it’s quite very easy for me because all of these content-related ideas come out automatically from my head. If you look inside my brain, it’s 24x7 thinking about “Let’s choose a dish & create something creative.”

I’m a quite dreamy and creative person, so whatever I create, I’m imagining it in the first place that what the final output will be. And if I feel it’ll be liked by my followers, I just go ahead & create it.

But Believe it or not, I’m working on a still photo from the past 6 months & haven’t completed it yet because I believe it is too good to share it so soon, and in my head, it still isn’t “Perfect” yet & I don’t wanna take any chances.

6. What does your typical day look like?

I’m just constantly thinking about creating a new food tray post and a recipe. Even when I go to sleep, I’m thinking about that only. Recently only I upgraded a few of my equipment and soon I’m going to achieve the pace of 1 recipe + Food tray post per day for Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Apart from this, I have also recently started a live session called “Dine with the wine” where, food bloggers are invited, and we have fun food-related conversations with the followers. I go live every Saturday and upload these live sessions on my IGTV.

7. Which is your favorite book and why?

I’m a huge movie buff. Not much into books. I have seen Avengers 1st part, 32 times, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 28 times, and interstellar 21 times. And yes I know it’s funny, but I do have a list where I write how many times I’ve watched a film.

And obviously, ZNMD has inspired me a lot to do what I love the most as a full-time career i.e Food blogging. After all, we get only 1 life, right? So why waste it on doing what we DON’T love? Or be with people we don’t love?

And the petty fights we have over the internet? Shouldn’t we be calm & just have fun? Because always remember, we have only 1 life left, and if we don’t spend it positively, we’re not getting the good days back. So by this platform, I’d like to encourage all the creators & social media users to spread POSITIVITY AS MUCH AS THEY CAN!

8. What piece of advice would you like to give to future and aspiring creators?

Firstly find your talent. Just because you see a good creator on the internet, doesn’t mean that you too have to do the same. For example, If you love the posts from a particular food blogger, but you are a fantastic dancer, don’t go on to become a food blogger.

Instead, start creating content based on what you are BEST AT. Then secondly, increase the quality of your content, once you do that, followers + likes will come automatically. And once you achieve quality, then go boom!

Create as much content as you possibly can. If you want to take more food blogging tips, you can visit my IGTV’s Playlist called “Dine with the wine.” & in the last 20-30 minutes, you’ll find lots of tips from me and other famous Indian food bloggers.

- Kunal Khanna, Blogger

-Interviewed by Shilpy Sharan