How The Great Indian Kitchen Cooks Up a Nauseating Tale of Modern-Day Sexism
As I was surfing Amazon Prime earlier today, hunting for the perfect show to complement my near-perfect South-Indian breakfast, I came across the banner of a Malayalam film titled The Great Indian Kitchen. Presuming it was the Indian movie version of a Gordon Ramsay special, I dived right into it, expecting to witness tasteful montages of colourful Indian culinary blends, but what I was served instead was a nauseating (and I cannot stress this enough) insight into the daily routine of a house-bound wife.
The movie kicks off with the wedding ceremony of the bride and the groom, whose roles are essayed by Nimisha Sajayan and Suraj Venjaramoodu respectively. Post-wedding nuptial bliss is short-lived as the wife’s mother-in-law leaves for her expecting daughter’s house, instating the new bride as the sole caretaker of the household. She takes on the new role with all the fervour of a domestic servant — yet she unfailingly falls short of the men’s expectations as the orthodox father-in-law presents less than reasonable demands. He insists on having his chutney hand-ground, his clothes hand-washed and his toothbrush handed directly to him. While he bides his time scrolling through family WhatsApp groups, the newcomer of the household partakes in domestic drudgery every day to keep things running. On a similar note, her husband is subservient to his father, the patriarch of the household, whose wish is the son’s ultimate command. When the wife brings up the prospect of pursuing a career in the performing arts, she is chided by the husband on different occasions on grounds of his father’s disapproval.
Time does not change her aversion toward housework, but merely desensitizes her to it. It’s a truth as glaring as the sun that from her first solo kitchen expedition right through to the last, she is sickened by the dirt and grime that accompanies housework, but perhaps even more by the awareness that it’s a load she has to bear alone. The men prove to be of little help and instead add to her vexations. When confronted with the ghastly sight of leftovers, food residue and liquids that come in all stomach-turning shades of yellow and green, she has little choice but to submit to the kitchen’s demands, and fulfil them, as one would expect of a newlywed woman contesting for her husband’s affections and society’s approval.
Menstruation is a ‘touchy’ subject in the film that both alienates and liberates the protagonist. On the one hand, it isolates her from every dimension of household activity. On the other, it exempts her from the imposed duties that once held her captive. It is during this total domestic, social and spiritual exclusion that her revolt begins to take shape. Director Jeo Baby said in an interview that the movie was initially rejected by most OTT giants, including Amazon Prime Video, because it broached the controversial issue of women being denied entry into the Sabarimala temple in Kerala.
As the film progresses, we witness the wife becoming increasingly cognizant of the world constructed around her — one that rewards domestic servitude and represses any voice that dares to dissent or challenge male authority. This sudden consciousness that emerged from the breaking of the trance-like state she had previously been in aroused her to the perpetuating cycle that her, and virtually every woman around her, had been trained all their lives to be a part of. And so, she decides to uproot her domesticated existence chosen for her in favour of a path of her own choosing. The Great Indian Kitchen still runs, though, now by another woman brought in to occupy the newly vacant role of wife.
From an average person’s vantage point in a rapidly changing world, it is puzzling to see how change has evaded us in possibly the most important domain of social life — equality, or its lack thereof, and the movie centers precisely around that. Word of caution, though: do not watch it while you eat.
