From finance to home secretary to CAG, high-profile civil servant turns pickle-maker: Report

His passion for making pickles has turned him into a businessman who now now sells 'Pickley – Taste of Dada'

From being the finance secretary to home secretary and the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, one of the high-profile names in the civil service corridors is Rajiv Mehrishi, who held several top posts during a four-decade-long career.

Now, from an illustrious career to a simple pickle-maker, Rajiv Mehrishi has come a long way - his passion for making pickles has turned him into a businessman who now sells pickles, marketed under the brand name “Pickley – Taste of Dada”.

Mehrishi, who retired as CAG in August 2020, while speaking to The Indian Express said he picked up pickle-making as a hobby while he was a joint secretary in the 1990s. “I started making pickles as a hobby. I did not take any recipe from anyone. I create my own recipe, according to my taste. I did not learn from anyone. The recipes are my own,” said the 1978-batch retired IAS officer.

“I don’t know how much salt, methi dana (fenugreek seeds), saunf (fennel) should be mixed while making the pickle, but I guess the quantities, and it works well,” said Mehrishi. “Bhagwan ki den hai, woh andaz hamesha sahi baithta hai, galat hota nahin kabhi. (It is God’s gift, the guesswork is correct, it never goes wrong),” he said.

Recalling when he was younger, he remembered his mother Vinita Mehrishi telling him that cooking was not a man’s job. Mehrishi first tried his hand in cooking in 1997 when he joined St. Stephen’s College as a lecturer where he taught for about a year till he joined the IAS.

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“Later, when I became joint secretary in the Central government, I started making pickles. It was a great stress buster. After working through the week, I took up the hobby of making pickles over the weekend. It provided relief and made me feel better. It was very interesting,” he told the publication.

“At first, my family liked the taste of the pickles, later my friends too liked it. So the quantity of pickles kept increasing. My mother and maternal aunt also liked the pickles I made. I thought that if my aunt was praising it, then it must be good,” he further said.

Two years ago, it was Mehrishi's daughter-in-law, Aastha Jain who decided to market his homemade pickles under the brand name “Pickley – Taste of Dada”.

“She does the marketing of the pickles. First, she registered a website, then she got bottles and started doing all this. I don’t look after the marketing side, she does it herself,” Mehrishi told the media outlet.

Around 20 varieties of pickles are listed on the website, including include mango, brinjal, bitter gourd, chillies, lemon, and jackfruit, all prepared without onion and garlic. “We are vegetarian… we can prepare food without onion or garlic,” said Mehrishi, who has his ancestral roots in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur. “I use home-ground spices and mustard oil. I buy a particular brand of mustard oil from Bharatpur — it is costly but I only use this oil,” he said.

Set up by Mehrishi’s daughter-in-law, Shaurya`s Pickles and Masalas LLP (named after Mehrishi's grandson, Shaurya) owns Pickley.