Annapoorani – The Goddess of Food which happens to be South’s Lady Superstar Nayanthara’s 75th film, is a rather confusing piece of tale which, even a non-Brahmin will not like, let alone a Brahmin who keeps himself away from eating meat!! Annapoorani which was released in theatres on 1 December, claimed to be a mouth-watering tale of a Brahmin temple priest cook’s daughter who wants to make it big in the culinary field. But alas!! As her cook father predicts, her culture did not allow her to even see meat, thus placing a hurdle in the aspiring chef’s career that Annapoorani has!! How on Earth can a top-class chef stay away from cooking non-vegetarian food? This formed the crux of the story.
We saw Annapoorani not only lie to her family but also see, touch and finally consume non-veg to become a good chef!! The basic concept in itself that came from Director Nilesh Krishnaa was erroneous to the core. It is a fact that many staunch Brahmins stay away from non-vegetarian food, irrespective of their residing abroad. In the era we live in, it is way too out-of-sync to show a person, that too a girl breaking all laws and going against her own family. Consider the ridicule a father who is a cook at the temple undergo when his own daughter dons the chef’s hat to cook non-veg.
Imagine what will happen when a family member of a temple priest cook who served his life, making prasadam at the temple for the devotees, sees his daughter cooking and eating chicken? This is what the film showed. This film which was streamed later on Netflix, got removed in days from the OTT platform. The reason was that many Hindu organizations objected to the storyline of the film, claiming it to be mocking the Brahmin community, also promoting love jihad.
Yes, there is an angle shown of Annapoorani’s close friend (boy) being a Muslim. Annapoorani derives her meat-cooking acumen from this boy’s mother and believes that only when she eats chicken, can she find the flavours of it right to cook. Also, when Annapoorani finds something amiss in the Chicken Biryani that she cooks, she immediately wears a burqa and does her Namaaz, and later, starts cooking Biryani so that she can get the right flavour of spirituality in her dish. And all this being done by a Tamil Brahmin girl, is hard to take.
Nayanthara might be the Lady Superstar and the Lady Killer, who can get any concept right, whether it be the dutiful roles, the action-packed roles and so on. But with this film, Nayanthara indeed failed to make the right choice. Nayanthara got it totally wrong, and we have a section of her fans debating on whether or not Nayanthara should have taken such a debatable role, that too in this phase of her career. The backlash the film got for its unacceptable concept is testimony to people having a strong hold on their culture.
Watch out and pick your next, Nayanthara!! Certainly, life lessons learnt!!
