Like it Or Not, Ram Did Eat Meat in the 'Ramayan'

The needless controversy surrounding the Tamil film Annapoorani, which was removed by Netflix, could have been avoided had the ‘upper’ caste people outraged over a dialogue actually read the very text they were seeking to defend.

Another needless controversy over culture and food, provoked, as usual, by Hindutva hot-heads has broken out. This time it’s over the recent Tamil film Annapoorani, starring the actors Nayanthara, Jai and Sathyaraj, directed by Nilesh Krishnaa.

The film’s story is interesting.

A Brahmin girl (Annapoorani, played by Nayanthara) dreams of being a chef. She enrols secretly (so as to avoid the disapproval of her strict vegetarian father, also a temple cook) in a hotel management course to learn how to cook gourmet food. There, she faces the dilemma of having to cook meat dishes. Her friend, a Muslim man (Farhan, played by Jai), convinces her that there is nothing necessarily wrong in cooking meat by citing a verse from Valmiki’s Ramayan, in Sanskrit, which features Ram and Lakshman hunting animals and cooking meat to assuage their hunger.

This exchange has Hindu zealots up in arms. Because some delicate ‘upper’ caste Hindu vegetarian sensibilities have been injured by the mere idea that Rama could be spoken of as eating meat, and that too at the time when the ‘pranpratishtha’ (life establishment) ritual around the idol of Ram in the new temple at Ayodhya is about to take place. Matters are further complicated by the fact that this occurs in the context of the film depicting a friendship between a Hindu woman and a Muslim man.

So, not just the question of culinary blasphemy, but also the civilisational catastrophe of ‘love jihad’ is invoked. Police complaints against the filmmakers have been filed in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. And now Netflix, the OTT platform where the film was being screened, has decided to remove the film. Zee Studios, the producers of the film, have offered an ‘apology’, needlessly, for having ‘hurt Hindu sentiments’.

The question is we need to ask is: Can Ram, Lakshman and Sita eat meat? Can we even think such a thought?

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