Review - ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’ (Malayalam Film)

 

‘The Great Indian Kitchen’ turned out to be a film I enjoyed more because of its powerful force of cogency and the introspection and churning of ideas it led to in me. To be fair, the near-perfect acting, the script, the cinematography (that focuses on the mundane details throughout and only at the end of the film zooms out into a brilliant aerial view of the beachside-building the protagonist drives into), and the use of song-lyrics to scaffold the drama of the film are all very impactful. But what stands out remains the director’s focus on the banality of forced routine of the several women in the homes contrasted with the banality of leisure of the menfolk in these homes - a reminder of Amartya Sen’s reference to starvation and fasting based on the luxury of choice. The one man who stands out as someone who cooks and seems to enjoy cooking non-vegetarian fare leaves the kitchen in a massive mess for the protagonist to clean all by herself.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Indian_Kitchen)

The film dwells on the visual imagery of vegetables being chopped, the stove being turned on and the smoke from the dishes being cooked on the stove, the sound imagery of all these, the clanker of dishes, and the dripping of water drops from the tap, and also the smell imagery of kitchen waste having to be cleaned by the woman of the house, who obsessively washes her hands in Lady Macbethian fashion. We suffer her pain when she performs these chores as if trapped. Most other women, especially the mother-in-law are sympathetic and act as allies and partners who are encouraging even as they remain in fear and themselves tolerate the oppression. But there are women who turn out to be non-allies – the aunt who comes in to help when the protagonist is menstruating, the own mother who is absolutely unhelpful – both symbolic of the women sitting in protest against women’s entry into the Sabarimala temple. The scene where we are shown the picture-frames of the women past and present some smiling beside their husbands in wedding photographs obviously hiding the oppression they suffer thereafter, screams irony at us because all we can imagine is their suffering the drab monotony of the not-so ‘Great Indian Kitchen’ where dosa is eaten always with chutney (ground on the grinding-stone, please, and not in an easier mixer-grinder) as well as sambhar, rice is only to be cooked using firewood (not in a cooker or on a gas flame), black tea has to have spices added for flavour etc., all tastes (clothes to be washed by hand and not in a machine; toothbrush and shoes to be handed over…) cultivated and dictated by men who sit around unhelpfully, but adding to this burden absolutely insensitively. The sense of entitlement the men feel is obvious in each encounter the protagonist attempts with her husband and father-in-law – “Ha, how could you even”!

The first fifty minutes of imagery and context prepare the setting for the drama of the next fifty. The film relentlessly juxtaposes tradition and modernity and questions the wisdom of having postgraduate women remain confined to the kitchen and its associated chores (cleaning, cleaning, cleaning). It has the courage to show us where we are wrong as a society, and as a man, if you don’t feel guilty, you are either brutally insensitive or you live with very empowered women around you!