Vikas Khanna was executive chef at the Manhattan restaurant Salaam Bombay from 2002-05. After training as a chef in his native India, he moved to New York City in 2000 and two years later had become executive chef at Salaam Bombay. He also began organizing charitable works: he founded SAKIV ("South Asian Kid's Infinite Vision"), a group dedicated to preventing blindness in Asian children; Cooking for Life, an ongoing series of tasting events for charity; and Vision of Palate, tasting classes for children with visual disabilities. He is the author of several books, including Ayurveda: The Science of Food and Life (2005), The Spice Story of India (2006) and The Cuisine of Gandhi (2005, described on his official site as "A book based on Gandhi's concepts of the ideal diet").