Boomtown

‘Roy, I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

‘I can’t marry you, JJ. It would ruin our friendship.’

JJ laughed. ‘Very funny, but no, I’m going to start a restaurant chain. I found this amazing cook in Chandni Chowk…’

It all starts when Jaaved Khan, the young heir to an iconic eatery - Khan Mian Khan's - in the curling, crumbling lanes of Old Delhi, becomes disloyal. He starts experimenting, slipping in ingredients that don’t belong in his grandfather’s age-old, royal recipes. Khan Mian disowns family members for less.

But Jaaved's innovations catch the eye of JJ, a dissolute, eccentric young man, from a dissolute, eccentric old family. JJ has just returned to India, and he’s looking to mend his ways. When he meets Jaaved, it triggers an idea. A chain of restaurants offering twists and tricks on authentic Mughal cuisine.

Hundreds of years old, and completely new.

As they stumble forward towards this dream, JJ convinces two others to join him—Roy, his old friend who just got fired from his engineering job, and Sheetal, a feisty single mother who works in the hotel industry.

Their journey takes them from the crumbling Mughlai kitchens of Chandni Chowk to the trendy upmarket eateries of Gurgaon, and from the corporate corridors of venture capitalists to the crummy offices of property brokers.

Will their Great Indian Entrepreneurial Dream be realized? Or will Khan Mian, hell-bent on protecting his heritage and his traditions, hinder their plans?

Boomtown is a book about beginnings, about great friendships, grand adventures, and the mad journey of creating something new.


More on Boomtown
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Excerpt: http://theinventiveape.blogspot.in/p/excerpt.html
Author's article on the book's journey and inspirations: http://b-heard.in/2013/02/rock-walls-words/