Gulab jamun or gulabjaam — as any Marathi speaking person calls it — is a delicate dessert to cook. Made too soft and the chocolate coloured balls take the fun out of the yummy khoya and if they stay dry, it ruins the mithai . Cooking is an art and when director Sachin Kundalkar chose the name Gulabjaam for his new film about a young man from London trying to learn to cook Maharashtrian (read Puneri) food, he could not have found a better metaphor. “A rough round ball of khoya , is dipped in boiling sugar syrup and comes out a sweet dessert,” is the central idea behind Kundalkar's film.
Aditya Naik (Siddharth Chandekar) escapes from the airport even as his parents and fiancée drop him for his scheduled flight to London. Aditya wants to run away from his current existence — a highly paid bank job, affianced to a girl desperate to leave India and sleeping pills every night. As a child he has enjoyed dreams of selling pakodas (any resemblance to recent incidents is strictly coincidental), and has another dream now — starting a Maharashtrian restaurant in London.
Lying to his family and fiancée, he reaches Pune in search of a guru, who will teach him how to cook an authentic vegetarian meal. In his quest, he meets Radha Agarkar (Sonali Kulkarni), a caterer of a super hit tiffin service from Pune’s Shaniwar Peth. Radha it turns out, lives a reclusive life. Initially she refuses to teach him, throwing him out but finally gives to his persistence. Cooking is not just about the food you make, but how you wash your dishes, buy grains, stand at one place for hours, she tells him. “Extra garlic or masala means either you are killing the original taste or trying to hide your incompetency in cooking,” starts Aditya’s first lesson.
Aditya soon discovers why Radha is so reclusive — she can’t count numbers, is terrified to go out in open, loves dark rooms, fears new gadgets and thinks of herself 10 years younger than her actual age. Eventually, the mystery is resolved with the revelation leading to a stronger emotional bond between the two protagonists.
Kulkarni has delivered one of the best performances of her career in Gulabjaam . Her anger, helplessness, rare smiles and surrendering to the past, paint a memorable Radha. Chandekar’s London returned Aditya is not far behind. His desperation to resist family pressure and his journey to realise his dreams comes alive for the audience.
The film does run the risk of being named for portraying Pune’s middle class, Brahminical vegetarian cuisine as Maharashtra’s only food culture, but then it seems the script demands this. In this era of globalisation, it’s difficult to believe that Aditya does not find authentic Marathi food in London and has come to Pune to find his guru. Kundalkar’s strength lies in handling the emotional bonds between individuals, which he develops at his own pace, be it two lead characters or with his supporting cast. The use of background music, attention to minute details in the frame and a tight script are Kundalkar’s strong points. His female leads are always powerful characters and Gulabjaam does not disappoint.
Gulabjaam, though is not a food movie. It is about two individuals evolving with the help of each other, keeping their pasts aside. The one who has nothing shows the path to the other who has everything, except for the future.
