So, the play grew from long-standing questions that had been bothering me. I had been watching what was happening around me and it all came to a head one night when I broke down. When I moved to Mumbai and was working in a play, I watched my colleagues and how they would not eat, which I now understand as directing a play — the shame of saying that I was hungry. I was questioning what I knew: choosing this profession was a privileged choice, but does that mean this hunger is not valid? That was the whole question. Then I started researching the Bengal famine and how people would beg for fana, the starch water; and how aloo posto came into play because of the British forcing Indians to grow food crops. There was a huge communication gap between parents and us about our struggles in theatre and with this play, I wanted to close that gap. I wanted to create something for them, the parents who are at home and don’t know what their children are going through.

During his 125th birth anniversary, I came across Bertolt Brecht’s poem called The Shopper, where an old woman cannot afford groceries, but goes anyway so people notice her hunger. That was the triggering point of this whole play. I had to include aloo posto and fana bhaat because these are Bengal famine-born dishes. It is important that the audience needs to smell the food — the mustard oil tadka, kalo jeere, raw posto and govindobhog chaal — as the play goes on. I wanted people to feel that, look forward to eating together with the protagonist and realise that these famine-born dishes, born out of starvation, have now become so expensive.

With every show, the moment the pressure cooker whistles and the potatoes are done keeps changing. But it is still a full play, tightly blocked yet flexible enough to include the cooking. Phase two begins when the play ends and people start eating and talking — and that’s what I love about it. In Kolkata, we spoke with the audience for three to four hours; they simply shared their food stories.

I think it keeps changing. In Delhi, it became about how someone like me, from a family that once couldn’t afford my education or even milk, can be everything in this country. During the Delhi shows, I heard students cry when I said, “ma, it’s not possible... the home that you and baba created, it’s a delusion right now; we can never own a home; there’s no place for us to live.” When hope is dying, what do you do? The mother answers, “I’ll GPay you some money, you buy aloo posto and fanna bhaat and you eat food; and some hope will come.” But she is from another generation, so it also highlights the disconnect between generations.

In today’s world, food definitely translates into identity. I live in Kandivali, Mumbai, where I was denied housing simply because my surname is Bengali. During Durga Puja, when people come together to eat, they are encouraged to switch to a vegetarian meal and not eat meat. It’s ridiculous. How can you generalise all the cultures of this country, where the culture and food changes every few kilometres? Food was political then, but now it’s even more political and undoubtedly translates into identity, because it is not only about caste and religion; it is also about class and the food you can afford. At every level, food segregates people. In Kheyechish? all these aspects are addressed in the play.