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Food that binds!
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Interview Sudhir Mishra shares his thoughts on cuisine, kitchen disasters and Khoya Khoya Chand
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Photo: Rajeev Bhatt
Film funda Sudhir Mishra finds a link between a producer’s generosity and the amount of oil in food!
Sudhir Mishra is quite the king of nostalgia. First there was the homage to the swinging Seventies with its angst-ridden students, “Hazaaron Khwashien Aisi”.
And now there is his tribute to the feisty Fifties, “Khoya Khoya Chand”. The film traces a tumultuous relationship between a reigning movie star and a poet writer played by Soha Ali Khan and Shiney Ahuja respectively. “Every one discouraged me when I decided to cast Soha Ali in this film. But now they say, you made the ‘perfect’ choice,” Mishra says with a chuckle.
Mishra says that the film is also a take on the sexual harassment of a woman in filmdom.
“But I believe it is more in academics than in films. I know that because I have seen both worlds very closely.”
Chef secrets
Conversation shifts to food and Mishra admits that he has never been a good cook.
“I would always end up making a mess of it. So, I when was living in Delhi and Mumbai with a few friends during my days of struggle, they would never ‘allow’ me to cook.
“They would assign me jobs like buying vegetables, bringing water and so on,” laughs Mishra.
Mishra who hails from Lucknow cannot but help talking about his hometown that made him “eat only good food”.
But he adds that he is not an adventurous food eater.
“I can’t eat octopus, monkeys, dogs or whale when I visit other nations.
“I think one must eat only fish and mutton and leave the rest of the animals in peace. I love mutton kebab and pulao.
“In Lucknow, today’s elite ‘biryani’ was considered ‘substandard’ in olden times. The standard rice meal was pulao and nawabi kheer.”
Talking about food in films Mishra says: “On film sets, if a producer doesn’t arrange for oily food, people think that he is a kanjoos.
“So, to keep all workers happy, it has to be made sure that the food is rich in masalas and oil. Yashraj excels in that.”
Mishra thinks that if you are surrounded by women, especially Bengalis, you end up learning cooking.
Lessons from Bengal
“I was married to a Bengali for 10 years. You know these Bengali mom-in-laws have a pet phrase for their son-in-laws, “Tumi roga hoe gacho” (you have grown weak) and then fill you with macher-jhol, mangsho, bhat-e-bhat and mishti doi (fish, curry, mutton, rice and dessert).
“They talk of food and literature too much.
“I also ended up learning some cooking from my wife and all those Bengali women surrounding me. But that helped me a lot when I didn’t want to eat market food,” he adds.
“When I was living in Delhi in a rented apartment, my landlady would cook for all of us and serve us with great love and affection.
“But the problem was, she would invariably put lots of salt in the food. As she would insist on feeding us herself, we could never dodge her.
“We asked her to put less salt, but she would always forget. Finally, we vacated that house only because of her love-filled salted food.”
RANA SIDDIQUI
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