How the emotional subject of food has entered the political discourse too

In our swachh era, we are made to believe that a majority of Indians are no longer content with prefixing shudh (pure) to shakahari (vegetarian) and letting the value-neutral non-vegetarian partake of meat in peace. So for an Assamese who identifies as a “pure” non-vegetarian — as many from the high meat-consuming Northeast region would concur — a new meat-centric film felt like a welcome cinematic transgression. One that left me chewing on questions of love and desire as well as ruminating on the politics of food.

The Assamese film Aamis (Ravening) is not a treatise on non-vegetarianism. It is about