Yet Untitled Lite 015 - Comfort Food

The place of Kadhi Khichdi, Baked Gulab Jamun Tiramisu and Nida Manzoor in our our lives

Dearest Yet Untitler,

At some point during a run at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, when my heart rate was above 160, I slowed down and started looking for inspiration - the kind I’d got on my last run when I saw a deer darting out of the wilderness in front of me (you can read about it here in the last instalment). I still didn’t know what this present instalment was going to be about, and then - as I have experienced time and again during such runs - it suddenly froze in front of me like a deer in mid leap caught on a fast lens.

A reader of mine had responded to the last instalment in this way. It stayed with me. I thought about ‘comfort food’ for a long time after, not yet knowing what to write about it. A few days later, I happened to re-watch Good Will Hunting and found myself very comforted for various reasons.

I thought I could write about this film and why it comforted me, but it already has some fantastic reviews out there (here’s one by Roger Ebert) and I feared that writing about GOOD WILL HUNTING being this great film would be a cliché of sorts.

Now that I’ve said the C word, I should discuss it a bit. While writing, my favourite co-writers and I do not eschew clichés, because we respect that they have survived the test of time and are collectively curious to understand their longevity better. But I find that not everyone does this. I find that these days, popular entertainment - in its effort to be original - is sometimes unfairly dismissive of cliché.

Take, for example, this new show that everybody is talking about - BEEF. In it, there are two characters who are really worn down by the world and they don’t know where to look for comfort. One of their spouses tells them - “go write in your gratitude journal to calm down”. The show’s mention of gratitude journaling as a source of comfort takes an arrogant tone, reducing it to something worthy of ridicule.

It’s easy to diss clichés. For one, clichés don’t hit back, like the poor brick decimated by Van Damme in BLOODSPORT (also a comfort food for yours truly, and how!). Or perhaps, clichés do hit back, even if only via their tenacity to survive.

Clichés, like comfort food, are an easy target. They are ordinary, un-original and common. But I think they are worthy of respect, even if for their sheer reliability to hold us up in this topsy-turvy world.

Seeing how BEEF dissed somebody somewhere’s comfort food - gratitude journaling - made me think of my responsibility as a filmmaker, as a guy whose work potentially reaches millions of people. That morning in the park, when this instalment was formulated, I did not want to be the guy who disenchanted someone away from their comfort food - be it gratitude journaling or eating Kadhi Khichadi (which by the way, is a top comfort - says this half-Gujarati).

Perhaps I was being overly dismissive. BEEF has a high rating of 8.2 on IMDb, and I stopped watching after Episode 1, unwilling to give it any more slack. But I remember - I was once a writer on a show that opened with a dog being flung out of a window. I remember having reached out to a friend to ask whether they had enjoyed the show, and was told that they had stopped watching after the dog died (which was essentially after watching the first 5 minutes of the opening episode).

I get it. Our comfort food - be it a warm puppy or an batshit crazy feline - deserve to have us fight for them.

But let me tell you…

…there is one kind of comfort I have fought and will continue to fight against.

Once, I wrote a show that was very violent. Understandably, after prolonged exposure to the material’s darkness, my co-writers and I started reflecting the same darkness back at each other. One night, two of my co-writers started talking about the bleakness of the world and why, in 15 years, everything was going to go to flames and there’d be no point in having children. They went on and on - as if comforted against the world’s very real problems via their dismal, doomsday banter. The other remaining writer and I kept quiet, she for her reasons and me for my own. For my part, perhaps it would have been easier to jump in with the two rather than contribute to an awkward silence, but I really didn’t want to.

After the two finished their doomsday projections and left, I turned to the other writer and told her that I don’t believe even one sentence of what those two had said. I told her how I believed that there was hope and how I thought that hope was for us to create. So there!

At that point she hugged me and told me that she was pregnant!

Her son is a thriving young boy today and she’s a happy mother.

The things that bring us comfort - the slow, soft in-breaths that give us solace in this topsy-turvy world - may be humble, well-worn and unexciting to speak about. But I think they are worth protecting and respecting as long as they do no harm to another life. If either of us - you and me - did not have these things, where would we be?

So, let’s hear it for Baked Gulab Jamun Tiramisu, if that’s what gives you ease!

It exists. Look!

Before I go, here’s the trailer of Nida Manzoor’s new film, which was so so so satisfying that it promises to become one of my staples for comfort in the future.

Thanks for listening! See you next week.

And oh, do share this newsletter with anyone who you think might enjoy it.

Lots of love,

V

PS. Drop me a line if something resonated. I’d love to hear from you! And, goes without saying, I’d love to hear what your favourite comfort food is!