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About 5 years ago, I managed to con my employer into sending me on a culinary tour of Mexico with celebrity chefs. I falsely thought that this was my talent. I could convince people to finance my whims, with a subsequent ill-advised foray into filmmaking.

During that tour, I sampled a lot of dishes whose complexity boggled and left me with a perpetual “wow” reaction which could only be cleared with some fine mezcal. And then I tried something that defined artistic perfection. I hailed it as the best thing ever.

Why?

Because I understood it.

It was butter, served with bread while the appetizer was being pulled out of the aquarium. I applied a chunk of the butter to a crusty baguette, and the following happened in bullet time –

A readily accessible caramelized sweetness that slowly built in intensity, surrounded by a refreshing citrus bloom with occasional flavor bursts, …

If you look back at cinema from its inception, one of the most workable justifications for playing out something totally outrageous and uncanny was to just make the protagonist DREAM. In the case of Indian Cinema, due to the lack of breath taking vista’s in the vicinity of the slums that our protagonist lives, and due to the inability of our maker’s to dream the least, the scenario plays out very well to justify dancing in the woods of Europe and we are left with staring at the botany showcase of the region’s flora. But to make a point – DREAM’s actually give the writers some of the most exciting prospects to put their creativity to best use and come-up with something that totally knock’s the wind out of the viewer.
I was recently listening to Charlie Kauffman on National Public Radio (like All India Radio), who happens to …