A Food Goddess Has Made Some Indians Very Angry

The best food movies are rarely about food, but they all understand the importance of the dishes they spotlight. One indicator that a movie or TV series on the topic is successful is that those who watch it want to Google its recipes and when they do they find their answer immediately. 

They may wonder how to cook every dish shown in the film/series (see this list of recipes from the gut-wrenching The Bear) or they may want to know more about the real meaning of the dishes. It is food that anchors the most successful movies of this genre, whether they are about marriage, finding oneself, mental health or even class differences and the desire to murder the dinner invitees before the night is done like in the creepy film The Menu. “The second course is made up of no bread with only savoury accomplishments … this plate of sauces suggests that none of the island’s guests deserve bread,” wrote these critics who analysed every course on the deadly menu. If Julie & Julia introduced movie watchers to Beef Bourguignon, makers of The Chef inspired Pinterest boards because they consulted with a star of the food truck scene in Los Angeles for their recipes. 

The Tamil film Annapoorani (food goddess) mostly fails on this count except for ukkali, the Indian dessert it promisingly starts with, and one sequence where the titular protagonist must cook without a key kitchen accessory in a competition.

The seemingly harmless story of a temple cook’s daughter who wants to become India’s best chef is the latest in a long list of movies to have angered some of us. A Shiv Sainik in Mumbai has filed a complaint against Annapoorani for hurting religious sentiments and ‘promoting love jihad’, a conspiracy theory perpetuated by hardline Hindu organisations. That’s likely why the film was at the top of the charts on Netflix when I watched it. 

I’m a fan of movies that showcase the ambition and drive of Indian women and their desire to make something of their lives. Lead actor Nayanthara, who plays Annapoorani, the protagonist with evolved taste buds, is at the top of her game in her real life. She made her Hindi film debut in last year’s Jawan and Annapoorani, her 75th film, celebrates 20 years of thriving in the industry. Even the rah-rah music score of the film seems to be cheering both Nayanthara’s on and off screen personas. 

But the only dish that comes to mind as you wade your way through the plot is bhelpuri. The film tries to commemorate Nayanthara’s 75th by saying everything it possibly can about contemporary India, a place where women “don’t even have the right to own their own mistakes”. 

In the age of Islamophobia, it seems almost irresponsible that the only character who speaks out about Hindu gods not objecting to meat eating and how nobody has the right to tell you what you should and should not eat is a Muslim. 

The same friend urges Annapoorani to leave her wedding ceremony to pursue a career in the big city, prompting the allegation of ‘love jihad’. It’s a job the character of her grandmother, who aids him, could easily have done herself. “Marriage will be the end of your dreams,” she tells her granddaughter. “If you keep thinking of society it won’t help your identity.” She says she gained nothing by clinging on to orthodoxy and tradition: “I am the mirror reflecting your future.” 

The film is also tone deaf about the strict caste rules that govern culinary ‘traditions’ in India, opting to attribute what we put on our plates to our diversity. “Food practices were never made out of choice (but were the fallout) of a lack of options,” Dalit researcher Deepa Balkisan Tak said in this essay a couple of years ago. On more than one count, the film sacrifices depth in favour of breadth. In that respect, 2021’s The Great Indian Kitchen, which dived fearlessly into the issue of married women and household work, is a clear winner. 

Annapoorani’s classmate’s father, one of her key supports, tells her early in the film that she needs to answer an important question: ‘Why are you cooking and who will eat your meals?’ The filmmakers should have asked themselves why they were making this movie and whom they saw as their audience. 

Right now, the question most people are likely Googling after they watch the film is why the right wing is ‘denouncing the film’. Someone replied online to one such query: “The only people who seemed to have watched the movie are the ones denouncing it.” Them and me.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.