Let’s get right to the point: Stories of a Dish, a solo show created and performed by Himanshu Sitlani of Nautanki Bazaar and tightly directed by newcomer Neha Poduval, is terrific. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, resonant, well-paced and movingly performed.
The work centres on a bachelor foodie shut in at home in Toronto during the pandemic. He craves the foods of his native India . . . but he is unable to cook. Nor can he appeal to his mother, who is giving him the silent treatment. You see, never mind the global pandemic, his refusal of her plan to arrange a marriage to a nice girl to do all the cooking has led to a rift. Even Nani, his beloved grandmother, has taken his mother’s side, leaving his poor father as an unfortunate go-between.
The image is of a brown man of South Asian descent. He is wearing a a blue t-shirt, black chef’s hat and black apron. He is holding a piece of burnt toast in his left hand.
What’s a fellow to do? He cannot even get groceries delivered, so we witness his comic tribulations as he prepares bland pre-packaged meals and burns some food . . . all while earnestly recounting memories of hilarious, heartwarming – and sometimes heartbreaking – milestone moments in his life. Along the way, he unpacks the origin of the ubiquitous butter chicken dish, explains his birthday tradition of eating pao bhaji with his family – and gives non-Indians brief, fun language lessons (explaining for instance, why you should never say “naan bread” or “chai tea”).
The 40-minute show was inspired by the Stories of a Dish video series on Nautanki Bazaar’s Instagram and Facebook pages. Here, viewers could share and reminisce about their favorite dishes and what made them so special. The series became an inclusive environment for viewers to share their interest in and experiences with food, and it drew stories from Canada, India, the USA, the UK, Bangladesh, Kuwait and Trinidad.
The show’s universal themes of food, family, community and memory will appeal broadly, and South Asians in particular will smile fondly at the narrator’s many references to their food and culture. And the show not only celebrates how food creates community; it shows how it can be weaponized, in order to marginalize and discriminate. Indian food is complex… a sumptuous sum of many parts which combine to create a robust flavour and fragrant aroma – most of them described by westerners using the catch-all term “curry” (which is eschewed by Indians). Many viewers, especially South Asian ones, will commiserate with the narrator’s anguished recollection of how the cultural and familial bond of his family’s cooking was turned to a mark of shame, when they were victimized for the “curry smell” of their cooking by their first landlord in Canada.
Stories of a Dish is streaming on demand at Toronto Fringe’s Next Stage Festival. The show marks Himanshu Sitlani and Neha Poduval’s debut in Canadian Theatre. We look forward to more from this talented duo and Nautanki Bazaar. On-demand tickets can be reserved here.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2022
