This year, certain work commitments have scuppered my plans to be home for Durga Puja. As I moped and whined and looked up new Bengali restaurants in Mumbai, my thoughts drifted to The Bear , which swept the comedy Emmys. In the globally-acclaimed series, Carmy, a top-rated New York chef, returns to his hometown of Chicago after his brother’s suicide.
Over three anxiety-inducing seasons, we watch Carmy as he strains every nerve (his and everybody else’s) to turn their chaotic, family-owned sandwich shop into a high-end restaurant. Carmy is advised by his uncle to “be the guy”, to keep his eyes on the ball, yet home — with its unruly sauces and kitchen scars of grief — keeps butting in. Homecoming is a messy, delicate affair.
Over a decade ago, we met a different Carmy, of a lower calibre. The 2012 Hindi comedy Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana is a bittersweet take on family, food, and identity. Having stolen from his own grandfather and skedaddled to the UK, Omi (Kunal Kapoor), years later, is forced to return.
He takes over his family’s crumbling dhaba, but only a secret recipe, the titular ‘Chicken Khurana’, now lost, can restore its shine. Sameer Sharma’s film is The Bear on a low, gentle flame, and the final reveal is both hilarious and unexpected. “Maybe that’s all a family really is,” says the protagonist of Garden State .
“A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.” Watching Zach Braff’s 2004 comedy for this column, I was struck le.