The lady at home does all the things, cook food, cleaning, sweeping everything, while the man sits quietly and enjoys doing self-care.
This is the base of the story The Great Indian Kitchen. This is a small-budget Malayalam movie that brilliantly captures the specifics of a patriarchal family and
The movie “The Great Indian Kitchen” is famous as the “Breakout Film of the Year.” It’s related to the middle-class family from Kerala’s southern state, while the drama starts from an awful kitchen.
Even on social media, there raise many vulgar questions about unfair sexism within homes.
In the film, The Great Indian Kitchen’s director Jeo Baby says that a woman’s life revolves around the kitchen as per the Indian tradition.
While Men takes a woman as granted and order him for all the things along with the household responsibilities. He added that the idea for this movie came to his mind in his own house’s kitchen.
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The director continued telling his story and said he got married in 2015. He is of equal status mentality means equality between man and woman.
So, he started helping her wife in the kitchen, which spends a lot of time in the kitchen. However, after some time, he realized that even cooking has a lot of effort and heavy lifting involved.
After a while, he says, Jeo starts thinking of the “ways to escape the kitchen – drunkenness, monotony and repetition.”
He then shared his thoughts when he is in the state of thinking about the household women. “I felt like I was stuck in jail. And then I started thinking about all the women who can’t escape and that have upset me.”
The movie “The Great Indian Kitchen” starts with a marriage. The marriage is the same as other Indian marriages. That marriage is the arrange one.
Nimisha Sajayan played the bride role while Suraj Venjaramoodu played the groom’s role. Both of them are the lead characters of the movie. Their families surround them; meanwhile, they had shared a gossipy conversation.
After the marriage ritual completion, guests left the place, and the normal daily life begins. The new bride shared her hand with her mother-in-law in the kitchen.
The bride just wants to make sure the husband’s wealth and joy and take complete care of him. It is similar to the famous saying as the way towards man’s heart is through his stomach. And she started doing the same.
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Life in India’s bedroom is equally abominable where she is expected to provide sex at night, no matter whether she is ready or not – for the heart of the woman, in the patriarchal formation of India, is of little consequence.
Netflix and Amazon eventually reject the film. So, it’s first streamed on Neestream App. Moreover, the movie has won the rave review from the audiences and critics as well. The appreciation audiences are mainly women.
The BBC said it is very reliable. There is no violence, no performance in the film. This is a very realistic depiction of the insensitivity deeply entrenched within our homes, “Clinton P.S., assistant professor of English at Irinjalakuda’s Christ College.
Professor Clinton then said that she always saw women struggling in the kitchen, even her mother because Kerala’s meals are very sophisticated.
The food needs a lot of effort to take place as it involves chopping vegetables, washing them, grinding spices, and importantly garnishing food for adequate representation. All these things take a lot of time to complete.
Everything can be simplified, but we don’t do that. The reason behind this is that a woman is always promoted as a superwoman and ready to accept every responsibility without any objection.
Kerala is one of the most progressive states in India. It is often cited as the only place in the country that has achieved 100% literacy. It has a large number of women that work informal jobs.
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At the same time, Professor Clinta said that Kerala’s society is most patriarchal in comparison to the rest of India. Professor Clinta further said that we always talk about Kerala women’s empowerment.
A vast number of women indeed go to work daily, but it is also the fact that they have to do all the household works after returning. This process is in highly educated families too.
She then tells about her own house that they are gender-neutral. The household works are shared equally between her husband and her, while the story is different in her parental house.
At Prof. Clinta’s parental house, men know about gender equality but don’t follow it in their own house. She said her father also has double standards.
Even she has heated arguments on the same as well for being unfair to her mother. Her father is the modern man, but all the house work responsibilities are over her mother only.
As per Kerala’s famous phrase, you wear progressive slippers, but you would leave them at the door.
India is also like many other parts of the world. Here also the housework falls on women naturally. As per the International Labour Organization report 2018, Indian women spend around 312 minutes a day on care work while men spend only 29 minutes. This is the thinking that The Great Indian Kitchen tends to change.
Jeo Baby said women live in men’s jail. Men take every decision of the house while women only do work, and they don’t even get respect for the same.
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They want to tell the women through the movie that they must be out of this trap and stop suffering like this. You must also enjoy the world. The women also have the right to live equally and enjoy the world.
This will happen shortly before the real change happens, but The Great Indian Kitchen has definitely started a conversation about gender equality within households.
Meanwhile, his Malayali colleague informed him that all his friends and family discussed this matter in their WhatsApp groups.
There have also been numerous chats on social media with many people, especially women, commenting on the film on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Even women are recommending it to their friends and followers.
One lady said, “It’s about our story.” Another one said, “It puts our idea in front.” While a woman said,” The genius of the film lies in the fact that it did not exaggerate, even did not point fingers at anyone and shows us that soft-spoken, gentle men can be the most toxic.”
Some people imagine that the director of “The Great Indian Kitchen” should be a woman herself. Meanwhile, if we check the Facebook status, one man wrote that he felt guilty after watching the movie.
Another one said, “I am not able to write anything as I am the one who did the same.” While another one wrote, “an eye opening movie.”
While, professor Clinta said, “It is a good thing that people have started talking, but it will take years, if not decades, to change the ideas that have been muddled for centuries.”