was to give us a good education i loved flying and got into the naval flying school in cochin and then moved to ethiopia i moved to america when the government there was overthrown and everything was nationalizedso where did the politics kick instephen solarz who was a congressman used to come to my restaurant in new york those days we had a buffet for 595 he liked us he was fond of india and we became friends once we had a fundraiser for him and we raised some 20003000 he was a little disappointed i asked my manager in punjabi to cut postdated cheques for 5000 and to make sure it would not bounce solarz caught on to the word bounce and asked what was the problem i explained that i was not rich but i wanted to help him because he was a friend of india he hugged me and said he had found an honest friendhow did the indian political connections startonce mrs indira gandhi came to new york and we did the catering for her when she went to montreal where i had my first restaurant then in 197879 i went with solarz to india and we got an appointment with mrs gandhi gopi arora was her ps romesh bhandari was foreign secretary and doctor saab manmohan singh was finance secretary i have known them all from those days in 1985 i arranged a meeting of 20 sikh leaders with rajiv gandhi in new yorkthis was after operation bluestar and mrs gandhis assassinationyes many sikhs accused me of being a congress agent there was a lot of anger about the golden temple incident but i said i was working for indiaso how did the connections with the clintons whose friendship with you is bestknown happenwell solarz arranged a meeting with bill clinton when he was running for president no one thought he had a chance to win but i cut him postdated cheques for 25000 saying he should cash them slowly he laughed and said looks like you need the money more than i do bill and hillary have never forgotten my friendship when he became president my family was the first they invited to white house for dinnerhow much money have you contributed to the us political system what is in it for youmay be 10 million or more look honestly i have no agenda other than to help india of course i like power and access but i never ask them for any position and i am not affiliated to any party i worked tirelessly for india during the bjp nda government and again during the congress governmenthow does that happen most people go one way or the otheryou know how it works in the restaurant business people come to eat and drink in my restaurants in new york and washington vajpayee saab was very fond of foodi packed fish for him even when he went to visit his family in connecticut i