CTV National News is aboard HMCS Ottawa, with correspondent Adrian Ghobrial embedded with Canadian Navy personnel and documenting their work in the South China Sea, a region where China is increasingly flexing its maritime muscle. This is the fifth story in a series of dispatches from the ship.
Aboard a 250-strong warship, if you take the time to listen, you will discover a sea of inspiring stories.
Amit Khanna’s deeply personal journey led him to join the navy when he was 40 years old. His path to HMCS Ottawa is a story of pain, passion and service.
Proudly, Khanna tells CTV National News that “[as a] Member of the Royal Canadian Navy, you are serving your country.”
Inside the Halifax-class frigate, you’ll find Khanna’s infectious smile in the galley. He started cooking when he was 18 years old at his family’s restaurant in Delhi, India. His father was his mentor there and passed down decades of culinary secrets to him.
Amit Khanna poses in a Canadian Navy galley (Adrian Ghobrial/CTV News)
Khanna’s craft took him around the world, eventually as chef for Red Seal. For a time, he returned to India as an adult to donate part of his liver to his ailing father, the man he loved dearly and who taught him everything he knew about cooking.
With slightly teary eyes, Khanna shared that her father “loved the military and wanted me to join.”
His father passed away in 2018.
Three years later, now living in Halifax, Khanna, his wife Renuka and daughter Amaira, now 12, received their Canadian citizenship. It was at that moment that Khanna made a decision.
“I wanted to honor my father’s dream,” Khanna says, and that’s exactly what he did. A year ago, he was sworn into the Royal Canadian Navy as a seaman first class.
He is now on his first deployment aboard HMCS Ottawa, participating in Operation Horizon; an effort to promote peace and rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.
He also does what he loves: cooking.
Amit Khanna is seen working in a Canadian Navy kitchen (Adrian Ghobrial/CTV News).
With a thoughtful smile on his face, the 41-year-old first-time boater shares that “when you serve people food and see them smile, it makes my day.”
When asked what it means to him to be able to honor his father, Khanna quickly responds: “A lot, it really means a lot… If you think something is going to happen, it will happen.”
For Amit Khanna, he is now fulfilling a dream, in honor of his father and his country.
