Axone and the politics of food
I watched Axone (pronounced - akhonee) on Netflix 10 days ago. It's a quiet, satirical portrayal of feeling like an outsider - in this case in your own country - because of one's food preferences. The story revolves around a bunch of North-east Indian friends living in the capital and trying to cook a traditional pork dish cooked using the 'smelly' akhonee to celebrate their roommate's nuptials. It's a story of friendship, heartbreak, and belonging tied together by food.
The film begins with a bunch of friends buying pork chops and akhonee from a shady shop. They are harboring two secrets. One from their friend for whom they are planning the surprise and want to cook her favorite dish. The bigger one from their landlord and neighbors, who they know would get into splits over the strong and pungent smell of akhonee.
As the day progresses, the friends tackle various roadblocks. Amidst all this, various personal threads of the characters are shown. Chanbi and her boyfriend Bendang are dealing with a dark past. Upasana, the naive girl of the lot, is trying to do what she thinks will be best for her friends. Images of Zorem carrying the pot from place to place etch your mind. There are layers to the friendships and equations among these friends. There is camaraderie but also resentment and unsaid things. They could be any one of us. The underlying emotion of feeling like an outsider elevates the narration and the story.
It transported me to my graduate school years spent in Chicago. I was outside India for the first time, but it had been a few years since I was living away from my family. The culture and the systems were new for me, but the emotion of feeling out of place and trying to find my bearings was an old one. I had landed there on a weekday and tried to cook khichdi in the small pressure cooker I had carried all the way from Pune. The pressure cooker valve blew off in the first attempt. I had a mess to clean and no comfort food to relieve my anxiety.
As with everything I settled. I and a Bangladeshi roommate were the non-vegetarian (meat eating) majority in our 2-BHK rented Chicago apartment. We ruled the kitchen. We used masalas quite frequently. We would keep the apartment door open as there was no direct ventilation to the 15th floor, high rise apartment. Of course, the neighbors complained. The only thing we would do is smile and tell them we won't do this again. It did not stop us though.
After a few months, two Chinese girls joined us as roommates. It was their first time outside of their home, not just country. They could barely speak fluent English. The vegetarian roommate gave them a list of do's and don'ts which prohibited them from cooking 'smelly' things during weekdays. I remember being an accomplice in the discussion of 'these people cook anything yaar, you have to be careful'. Now, I hope they also had the same discussion and reactions when we cooked using Indian masalas.
What does food mean? For me, it's personal - a mixture of one's social, economic, regional upbringing. In India, religion/caste also plays a part in it. When a Sindhi friend introduced me to eating bhujiya with bread in my late 20s, I was appalled that I did not know that earlier! Our primitive brain only understands pleasure or pain. Whatever brings it pleasure is doubled down upon. That's how some of our basic food habits are built and evolve over time.
When the wedding in Axone takes place, it's a celebration of what we call culture. There are rituals. There is song and dance. And of course, there is traditional food - like every Indian wedding! Friends and family come together. It's a simple story. Maybe the film (the writer and director) also know that its just food. And why everyone keeps on making a big deal about it. On the other hand, only the lens of food makes it such a strong statement about the politics that gets associated with food.
By the way worry not, my parents couriered a pressure cooker valve within a month and I was back to cooking my comfort food even in Chicago :-)