Such was Atal Bihari Vajpayee's love for food that it once took a wily plan by his aides to deploy Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit to draw him away from gulab jamun at an official lunch. As Vajpayee breathed his last today, close aides and journalists recalled his fondness for gastronomical delights particularly sweets and sea food, his favourite being a platter of prawns. Senior journalist Rasheed Kidwai remembered how while attending an official lunch, Vajpayee, then the prime minister, was headed for the food counter even though he was on a strict diet. Anxious aides then struck on a plan.

They immediately introduced him to Dixit who was in attendance, and soon the film buff in Vajpayee took over as the two went on to talk about movies. "Meanwhile, the aides quickly removed the desserts from his line of vision," recalled Kidwai. Bureaucrats who worked with Vajpayee said that wherever he went he insisted on tasting the local cuisine. "So it was puchkas in Kolkata, biriyani and halim in Hyderabad, Galoti kebabs in Lucknow.