Tarla Dalal

Mrs. Tarla Dalal was born on 3 June 1936 in the city of Pune in India in a Brahmin-Marathi family. She was India's one of the most loved and best read author on food. She was also a food writer and chef. She wrote more than 100 books on food and sold more than 3 million of them. Tarla was one of the top five best-selling authors on cookery around the world. The Government of India conferred her with the Padma Shri award in 2007 for her achievements.

Tarla belonged to the Vaishnav family and was the eldest daughter. She helped her mother in the kitchen from the age of twelve. She did her graduation in B.A. Economics and completed the course in 1956. Tarla married Nalin Dalal in 1960 and shifted to Mumbai after her marriage. Her husband, Nalin Dalal has done M.S. from America pursuing Chemical Engineering. Nalin had a love for food from multiple cuisines. He motivated Tarla to give a try at cooking various cuisines. Tarla liked the advice and started reading different books and learnied at least two-three new recipes every day. Nalin taught her to be the perfect cook and devoured her dishes. He would give her suggestions which helped her get better every day. She soon became an expert in cooking.

In 1966, Tarla started cookery classes at home with six students. Soon the crowd boomed, and there was a queue of women and girls wanting to enroll and learn from her. Every mother would send her daughter to Tarla to make them ready for marriage when it comes to food. Nalin suggested her to write cookery books to be able to reach out to a larger population. Tarla wrote her first book in 1974 titled Pleasures Vegetarian Cooking. It became a hit. She soon formed a team and in 1987; she bought an office. She launched Sanjay and Corporation. Her books are translated into various languages like Gujarati, Russian, Dutch and more.

In 1988, with the help of her family, she set up her website Tarladalal.com. Tarla soon became Number One cookery Author in India and wrote about 150 books. Her website reached over 2.8 Million visitors in a month. Tarla started her cookbook series called Total Health Series in 2007. Taral's influence on every person around her was so good that the government awarded her with the Padma Shri award for her contribution. It is one of the highest civilian awards any Indian could dream of achieving. She became the first Indian to be given the prestigious award in the cooking category. She became very popular on Social Media as well. She started blogging and launched an app named Tarla Dalal app.

In 2010, she made videos of her recipes and posted them on YouTube. She uploaded about 400 videos which received a lot of views. Tarla Dalal lived a life full of love and joy. She had three children. In 2005, her husband Nalin Dalal died. She maintained a healthy relationship with her family. She lived on the Napean Sea Road in an apartment in South Mumbai. On 6 November 2013, she suffered from a Heart attack and died at her residence. Her blogs, recipes and videos keep her alive in the heart of her fans.