Director Vivek Agnithotri somehow finds a way to make headlines across the country, either for his films or the comments he makes. Recently, he landed in hot water after he made disparaging comments about Marathi food. Now, his wife, actor Pallavi Joshi, clarified the whole situation and made it clear that it was just a joke between the two. In an interview, Siddharth Kannan asked Pallavi about the comments and what she thought about them. She said, “Actually I was the one who made those comments; he had nothing to do with it.”
She explained, “See, I am telling you that some people have too much time on their hands, and they love to nitpick at everything that has been said. It was a small and inconsequential conversation, which was just a joke between a husband and a wife. I have never been a foodie, and I have always believed in eating healthy and clean. I eat when it’s time to eat, and I eat simple dal and roti. I don’t eat pickles or chutney with my food, because first of all, they are not healthy, and also I don’t have so much time to eat.”
She added that her eating habits are very different from her husband’s, and that is why he made the joke about Marahi food being a ‘poor man’s cuisine’. “Now I will make what I eat, so whenever I used to cook for Vivek, he used to say, ‘Yeh tumhara gareebon wala khana mujhe nahi khana hai‘ (I don’t want to eat this poor man’s food). He wanted a full plate, with chutney, pickles, and papad. So it was just a joke between a newly married couple. I don’t understand what people thought when they heard it, and they even sent him a notice saying, ‘You have insulted Marathi culture.’ Arey, uski biwi bethi hai na ghar par (Isn’t his wife sitting at home?), who is a Marathi herself. If there was anything insulting, won’t I be the first one to get offended and ask him to keep quiet?”
Pallavi expressed her problems with the social media age and said, “All the gossip that used to happen on park benches, smoke shops, and gardens has now come to social media. People would give their opinion on everything, but the next time they used to meet, no one would remember what the last conversation was about. Everything is permanent about social media, and once you say something, people read it and then shape their opinions of others based on that comment. It has become a very convoluted space, which is causing a lot of problems on an interpersonal level.”
The incident happened during an interview with Curly Tales. Pallavi was telling how Vivek was taken aback by the kind of food she used to eat during the early days of their marriage and how he used to call it “poor man’s food”. After the internet erupted because of the director’s comments, Vivek explained himself on the Raunac podcast and said, “Maine hasi mazak mai bola tha ( I said it as a joke). People picked up just the first half of my statement and started saying, ‘How dare he say something like this about Marathi food? He should be beat up. I don’t want to be dragged in such controversy, and people edit a lot of stuff these days.” Vivek added that he has actually stopped eating Marathi food, and has shifted to a complete plant-based diet.
