Promila Gupta

In 1983, Promila Gupta came to Australia with her husband and young family, leaving behind extended family and friends. Initially life in Australia was lonely, and very different from her life in India. To combat this loneliness, Mrs Gupta decided to join her local migrant centre, where she started teaching Indian cooking every Friday. As the group grew, others were also inspired to cook and share the cuisine of their native country. Many new friendships were forged in the community and Mrs Gupta was now enjoying life in Australia.

This was just the beginning of her contribution to multicultural Australia. Together with her local Indian community, she organised a traditional Indian bridal exhibition, showing off the jewellery, dress, colours and traditions of India. Mrs Gupta has taught cooking at TAFE, schools, women's associations, local fetes and senior functions, as well as hosting private lessons. She has published two cooking books, written a regular column in a leading Indian newspaper and worked as a voluntary student advisor for international students. Her extensive voluntary efforts, spanning twenty five years, were recognised in 2005 and 2007, presented with 'The Pride of Australia' and South Australian 'Citizen of the Year', respectively.

Now residing in Lake Macquarie, Promila Gupta continues sharing her passion for cooking in newspapers, on SBS radio and through WEA classes. She also travels with tour groups to India, acting as guide. Today she enjoys being an Australian, appreciating and sharing the love and connections with her land of birth.

This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License