A thing well done is worth doing!

Annapoorani (Tamil, 2023)
Writer-Director: Nilesh Krishna

Some flashbacks from my childhood. You go to the Indian barber. He has an opinion on everything. He proudly boasts that everyone bows down at his command, and he has his clientele by the throat. Sure, people do that when they need a haircut or a shave. What he gets is insider information from the horse's mouth.

Then you go to your neighbourhood 'teh tarik' joint. Again, the shop owner knew everything. He knew about last night's football results, why Malaysia failed miserably, about inner dark secrets about Malaysian cabinet ministers, you name it.

These two people knew everything: how to run the country, how to schedule garbage collection, and even how to win an election. One thing neither can do is what they set up shop for, to cut hairstyles that they claim to be able to do and make a decent tea respectively.

A thing well done is worth doing.

When my OTT algorithm suggested the above movie for viewing, I gave it a pass. The idea of an Indian Master Chef did not excite me. Reading the summary, I could predict the storyline. Brahmin girl, vegetarian, daughter of a temple priest going rogue, savouring non-vegetarian food, upsetting family and proving everyone wrong by swimming against the currents and sharks.

Talk about the Streisand effect. The movie hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. A complaint was raised in Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh against its filmmakers for hurting religious sentiments and promoting love jihad. I had to watch it.

Two scenes in the film were a concern for the complainants.

The aspiring chef grew up enjoying the aroma whiffed from stalls selling non-vegetarian food. When she takes up cooking in school, she breaks her vegetarianism to make the best biryani. Trying to justify her meat consumption, somebody mentions that even Lord Rama, an avatar of Vishnu, hunted for his meals during his 14-year exile, as written by Valmiki in Ramayana.

Her love interest is a Muslim who positively (or negatively, pick a choice) influences her in her setbacks and endeavours.

Surprisingly, nobody raised any alarm seeing this same Brahmin girl donning a hijab and bowing deep in Islamic prayers before starting the seminal dish that finally won her the coveted 'Best Indian Chef' award.

The complainants allege that the film's release timing is carefully curated to coincide with the inauguration of Ayodhya Ram Mandhir on 22nd January 2024.

Annapoorani is the Goddess of food and nourishment. She is the manifestation of Parvati. After going through multiple famines throughout their existence, Hindus realise that food is sacred. Offering food during auspicious functions is revered and is assumed to be blessed by Goddess Annapoorani. And we know how critical sattvik diets play in Ayurveda and Hinduism. It also includes the concept of ahimsa (not harming living beings) in it.

So, to cast a Brahmanic priest who gave up all the lure of a high-paying job to become a cook at a temple in Srirangam, to serve Lord Vishnu and to have a daughter to break the mould to dig into chicken biryani and offer namaz is in poor taste. Perhaps the makers should have been more sensitive. Imagine if it were a Muslim and it involved haram stuff; all hell would break loose.

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After all, it is just food.

The Menu (2022)
Director: Mark Mylod

Back when Master Chef and Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen' were a rage in Malaysia, I used to ask myself what the farce was all about. I could not understand why the chef had had his honours stripped off or what was wrong if the fries were slightly soggy or the meat was overcooked. After all, food is medicine, and we eat to live, not live to eat.

Obviously, none of the people at the receiving end of my lament saw any merit in what I was blabbering. To them, culinary skill is an art form. In fact, they thought it was science, a branch of science more delicate than neurosurgery or detonating a time bomb. On top of knowledge of alchemy, art was the essence of luring potential gluttons.

An episode of 'Hell's Kitchen', or sometimes 'Master Chef', carried so much toxicity and backstabbing as wannabe cooks scrambled to stir up cuisine in record time. They had to do that with the provided ingredients in the most creative way as deemed by the judges. In my school of life, these were all exercises of futility, as productive as counting the grains of rice before cooking! After being brought up by a mother who impressed her children that gluttony is a trait best left behind in our pursuit to achieve greater heights in life, I fail to appreciate the anger of the Head honchos. 

'The Menu' must be a revenge movie for all those cynics like me who like to ridicule the histrionics exhibited by braggers obsessed with culinary skills. It also takes a swipe at the so-called self-professed know-it-alls who think they possess the know-how the best about cooking, where to source the best foods and how to bring out the best flavours. And combine with it an exotic location, a mad chef and murder to complement, you get this movie - 'The Menu'. 

It is a dark comedy that tells the story of a group of food connoisseurs attending a food-tasting session worth dying for. It sniggers at the obnoxious waste of resources and the extreme ridiculousness of high-end restaurants and their equally eccentric chefs.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.