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

Food has always been an emotional subject, arousing fierce opinions and defiant defences

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