00:00If anyone has any doubt and I am going to say this very purposefully, if anyone has any doubt
00:06about what a good actor I am they have to watch this film.
00:11Your'e so good at this, Huma so no worries. You are in a very delectable movie
00:14If anyone has any doubt and I am going to say this very purposefully, if anyone has
00:19any doubt about what a good actor I am they have to watch this film. Cuz every time I
00:23feel like Bhindi, yum and be like Yet, chicken and I was like what? And my insides
00:29revolting because I'm such a hard-cook carnivore and with my father's legacy on Salim suddenly I'm
00:35just like I'm supposed to act in this film like chicken I find disgusting and Bhindi and Tauri
00:40and Matata Musallam I find yum like what a great actor I am but I think that's a very important
00:46and a cool hook in the film also because she really I think you know made like not just
00:52vegetarian cooking cool but also like was the first one to get like Chinese and Italian and
00:57I mean the first time we had pizzas you know it was the first time our mothers tried Chinese
01:02cooking at home it was and her recipes so she really like sort of you know I think helped
01:08the Indian homemaker you know to really like be get experimental with you know the world
01:16style of cooking and really introduce world style cooking techniques and dishes to the Indian
01:22I think she was in a saree she kind of broke all stereotypes on what what you need to look like
01:27to be famous etc. She was in a saree, she owned her roots that's what I thought was
01:32interesting about her absolutely I mean imagine like today in the world of master chefs and all
01:37of that and the Gordon Ramsay's the world here's a woman who looked like any other Gujarati,
01:43Marathi lady in your neighborhood who you would not look at a second time you know she was short
01:48she was she was not glamorous like any of the you know divas of that time and and that was also
01:54her fight right because she just looked like anybody she didn't have like a particular style of
01:58talking she just spoke like your friendly neighborhood auntie and she's somebody that you
02:02take up and you know put on this world stage and she's the one who was put in an 8x10 kitchen but
02:08she cooks her way out and inspires so many people she's the first one to have a cooking show she
02:13was the first one to have a cookbook at a point in time where it was unheard of like you know why
02:19would you pay money for a cookbook is it difficult to step did you talk to the family did you read
02:24what kind of legwork did you do um tons actually of course first started with like an amazing
02:30script that you should have written which all of us fell in love with and then of course you
02:35know seeing all of Tarla ji's old interviews and all her cookery shows and all of that and
02:42then of course we had Hital who was helping with my accent in the film because I have a very
02:46interesting Gujarati, Marathi, very Tarla-esque accent which is so specific to her that we had
02:51like her own glossary of terms that she used and how she would say it and all of that because of
02:55course each individual has their own nuance and way of talking right so we really kind of broke
03:00it down and then we were like okay we want to try and attempt to do this and try and capture her
03:04spirit as opposed to like imitate her, met her family, met her kids I felt a lot of like
03:10gratitude to the whole family for um and the makers for allowing me to play Tarla, it's a huge
03:16legacy and I hope I've done justice to it. I tried googling Tarla Dalal and controversies and she
03:21came scandal free she's got such a clean slate how do you then make it compelling? Tarla ji
03:26came from a time where I feel like it was see today I think we live in a very different age
03:31where it's a very clickbait world where everything has to be like sensationalized everything has to
03:36be like controversy ridden it's very like you know I feel like we live in a age of consumerism
03:42and like Instagram and all of that where it's all about the clickbait, it's all about selling
03:48yourself, it's all about marketing as opposed to like that time where it was really about like
03:52having a skill set you know there was a woman who cooked for most of her life till she actually
03:58understood oh my god what I do and what I can cook it touches people, connects with people and they
04:05really enjoy doing it and how she thought that this was her skill that she wanted to share with
04:08the world which is a gift of cooking and the gift of sharing your food. Today I feel the world is
04:14skewed in a different way you have 17 year olds trying to get you know have these beauty blogs
04:18about skin and whatnot I'm just like what do you know you're 17 like when you're 40 we'll talk
04:22about if you know anything about skin care or not you know so I feel we live in an age where
04:26it's all about people trying to put out more before actually acquiring and she came from a
04:30time it was about like genuinely building a skill set over years and perfecting the art of what you
04:35do and then sharing it with the world so yes she didn't have any controversy yes she was like any
04:40other lady next door you know who had kids and a family and you know she was very domesticated in
04:46that sense and yet she had something you know which was of such great value to the world it
04:51really changed a lot of things for a woman to be the first chef to have her own cookery show, to
04:57have her own cookbook, to have a male guy you know as like her sous chef supporting her you
05:04know as a as an assistant on that show these are all very radical things and I think they're
05:08people like Tarla Dalal you know who really sort of were the OG feminists in that sense and the
05:14OG like trailblazers in that sense so yeah and hence their challenges were very different it
05:20wasn't that suddenly there was a tsunami and how she swam her way out of it I mean that's a very
05:25again sensationalist way of looking at it but her battles were also very huge and were also
05:31very difficult to surmount like how do you sort of escape the interpersonal family dynamic how
05:36do you sort of you know navigate that space and that's what this story really is about
05:41If you were a spice Huma, what would it be? I would be a fresh crisp green chilli.
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