HE dropped out of school at the age of nine but renowned chef Ananda Mahadhavan has panned out the ultimate success story of how street smarts can trump the book smarts.
Since discarding his carpentry tools more than 40 years ago, the 60-year-old has achieved many milestones - among them the extraordinary feat of designing Plantation Resort's nine hole golf course.
His life today is a far cry from that of the dishwasher who landed on the island unsure of whether he would like his job.
With no formal training he cooked his way into the taste buds of resort owner Reg Raffe, and took over as his personal chef just months after he started scrubbing pots, emptying trash, clearing tables and mopping floors.
So impressed was Mr Raffe that twenty years ago he gave the man everyone loves to call Mama, the reigns of a newly opened restaurant, bar and supermarket that runs separate from the hotel.
The name Ananda is actually displayed quite prominently and is the greeting point of visitors and tourists who travel to the island by air.
"Yes, my name is everywhere," a visibly proud Ananda said during our last visit to the island.
Raised in Lautoka in a family where eight children scrimped and sacrificed, Ananda says his accomplishment surpassed his expectations.
He said working on the islands was unchartered waters for "most Indians" so he considers himself "thoroughly lucky". "I came from a very big family, my father was a train driver and we were very very poor. When I started working for construction company at the age of 17, I decided to follow a friend who had secured a job at Castaway, which was the first offshore island resort. After a year I decided to move to Plantation which at the time had a job for a dishwasher. And that's how my new life began."
He married Krishna Mani two years after he began working for Plantation and together they have four children.
At the time, he said chefs for the resorts were expatriates and the boss in the kitchen.
Enthralled by their crisp white jackets and hats, he decided to learn directly from them, experimenting in the kitchen whenever he found the time.
Good luck and good timing also played a role in his success.
"I came to Plantation when there were only seven bures. Over the past forty years I have watched as the number grew to 192. I was the only Indian here and now I am so happy to see that others are beginning to branch out to the islands, to work and also to stay."
"There were only a handful of workers and Mr Raffe was impressed with my enthusiasm. He owned six restaurants in Australia so he would bring me recipes and get me to cook them. He would be the food taster and tell me what I was doing wrong. I owe a lot to the man.
"Then I started to cook for him, this is after I had worked with five overseas chefs. I watched people come and go and finally one day Mr Raffe told me he would open a restaurant and supermarket in my name and he wanted me to run it. All the hard work and long hours paid off."
Soon, Ananda was playing golf which led Mr Raffe to ask him to design the golf course.
"I like it when people say I am the first chef to have done this," the sporting enthusiast who plays off a handicap of eight said. Ananda was also three time water ski champ, a deed that not many know about.
But lavishing praise on himself is something he does very reluctantly.
"Most of the tourists who come here are regulars and they all know me by name," he explained while greeting a crowd of tourists who had showed up to the waterfront restaurant.
What the modest high achiever failed to state was the obvious - they knew his name and they also knew his dishes.
