Why do we care so much what our actors eat?

Two recent events have brought home to me how public attitudes to Bollywood and to India itself

(okay, if not public attitudes then possibly manufactured controversies) have changed over the years.

 

The first has to do with the sad passing of Dharmendra, possibly the nicest human being ever to ever become a Bollywood star. And the second has to do with the needless fuss over Ranbir Kapoor’s diet.

 

   Let’s start with Dharmendra. Ever since I started writing about the film industry decades ago, it was universally agreed that the most good hearted and generous star in Mumbai was Dharamji, as everyone called him. It was said that anybody from his hometown in Punjab could drop in unannounced to his house and the visitor would be given food and, if he needed it, shelter.

 

   Nor was Dharamji competitive or petty. Amitabh Bachchan once told me the story of how he got the role in Sholay that turned him into a superstar. At that stage Bachchan’s big movies (Zanjeer and Deewar) had not been released. When the Sippys were casting Sholay, the film’s writers Salim-Javed recommended Amitabh for one of the lead roles. The producers were reluctant to cast him.

 

   Javed Akhtar suggested to Amitabh had he speak to Dharmendra, the movie’s star, and request him to recommend Bachchan for the role. Amitabh, who has always been unwilling to ask anyone for favours, swallowed his reservations and went to speak to Dharamji. To his surprise Dharmendra agreed at once to help and went and spoke to Ramesh Sippy the film’s director.

 

   You know the rest of the story. Bachchan was cast and went on to give a glorious performance. Though people later told Dharmendra that he had been wrong to help a potential rival, Dharamji never once regretted his decision. He was that kind of decent and generous man.

 

   While people wrote reams of copy about Dharamji and Amitabh, there was one question that was rarely asked: were the actors vegetarians? If people had been so concerned about the dietary preferences of actors in those days, then they would easily have found the answers.

 

   Dharamji was a non vegetarian though in later years he was careful not to eat meat if he was dining with his vegetarian wife Hema Malini.

 

   Amitabh was a non vegetarian who gave up eating meat voluntarily till 1989 when he was being persecuted by VP Singh’s government. He briefly returned to eating meat for a few months till he resumed his vegetarian diet. But he never forced his preferences on his family and meat was served in his home.

 

   None of this has ever seemed particularly important to me and frankly it still doesn’t. Nor did anyone else seem to care too much.

 

   But now, as Ranbir Kapoor has discovered times have changed.

 

"We have a Meat Police on social media who are ready to pounce on anyone who admits to eating non vegetarian food especially if the person concerned is famous."

   The Kapoor family have always been the greatest gourmands in the Mumbai film industry. Raj Kapoor loved his paya curry and his children were/are passionate about food. His grand-daughter Kareena has a sophisticated global palate and his gifted grandson Armaan is set to become a force in the food business. His son Rishi Kapoor usually had something to say to me about my food columns and though he wasn’t always complimentary it always came from a place of knowledge and experience. Often he would recommend restaurants I should write about. (He was always right.)

 

   I guess the Kapoors, like so many others, had not fully grasped that the mentality of a few Indians had retreated to some mythical conception of the Middle Ages. According to this bogus view of history and tradition, Hinduism and vegetarianism are inextricably intertwined and anyone who eats meat is betraying the faith.

 

   This is errant nonsense. Yes, some upper castes (mainly Banias and some, but not all, Brahmins) have a vegetarian tradition. But most Hindus are not vegetarians and non vegetarianism is growing all over India. A survey by Pew found that six out of ten Indians would not describe themselves as vegetarians.

 

   As nonsensical is the notion that all the characters in the great Indian epics (such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata) were vegetarians. There is no reason to believe, for instance, that the Lord Ram described in Valmiki’s Ramayana was a vegetarian. In fact many historians claim that vegetarianism was part of the Jain tradition and later infiltrated Hindu beliefs.

 

   But we have a Meat Police on social media who are ready to pounce on anyone who admits to eating non vegetarian food especially if the person concerned is famous. When Ranbir Kapoor was said to have admitted to liking beef he became a target of the Meat Police. Perhaps, as a consequence, when Ranbir was cast as Lord Ram in a movie that is under production, the PR team put it about that he would give up meat during the filming.

 

   This was a silly thing to do because it put the Meat Police on high alert. And sure enough an opportunity to attack Ranbir has now arrived. When Armaan who is Ranbir’s cousin made a TV feature called Dining With The Kapoors the Meat Police watched with eagle eyes. I have seen and enjoyed the TV feature where, as you would expect, non vegetarian food is served to several generations of the Kapoor family. I wasn’t looking too closely at Ranbir’s plate so I don’t know if he restricted himself to vegetarian food. Nor do I know when the shoot took place though my instinct is that it was filmed quite a long time ago.

 

   But let’s assume for the purposes of argument that the feature was made after the PR announcement about Ranbir giving up meat had been made and that he did eat the non vegetarian food: so what?

 

   Okay, perhaps he changed his mind after saying that he would turn vegetarian. But he has a perfect right to do so. It doesn’t make him a bad human being or unfit to be some movie version of Ram.

 

   And more to the point: why has this become such a controversy? Why do we care so much what our actors eat? What kind of person joins the Meat Police to control other people’s eating habits? Don’t they have anything better to do with their lives?

 

   It’s a symptom of a certain kind of mentality that has become more and more widespread in India: where people make up historical and religious ‘facts’ to justify their own prejudices; where idle bigots make themselves feel good by sitting in judgment over people who have achieved so much more than they have.

 

   It’s sad to see how low we have descended from the days of Dharamji when people were judged on their good deeds not on their Butter Chicken. It’s a sad symbol of how far we have travelled from that era. While the rest of the world forges ahead India is held back by the Meat Police, by lies about religion and tradition and by an unhealthy interest in what other people eat.