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To love is to feast. To desire is to hunger. Were you born with this hunger, or was it borne of your circumstances? What came before it? What will be left after? These are the many questions that Bhaskar Hazarika’s 2019 Assamese feature film Aamis, alternatively titled Ravening, compels its characters and viewers to reckon with. Through an exploration of the grotesque and the unconventional, it challenges the norms governing the respectability and morality of desire in our society. By interlacing gory elements with a primal sort of tenderness, Aamis succeeds in evoking empathy rather than sensationalised outrage. This delicate interplay is where the film shines the brightest, calling upon its viewers to confront their own hunger—for food, for flesh, for understanding, and for acceptance.
Much has been written about the narrative structure through which Aamis subverts audience expectations, luring them in with the premise of a mundane, albeit illicit, relationship between a married paediatrician and a young PhD student, only to delve into cannibalistic horrors in the second half of its runtime (Prajapati; Naahar; Thakur). Although less common in South Asian cinema, cannibalism has emerged as an important motif in global filmography, symbolising the transgression of various boundaries (Brown 4). Manifesting as the “uncivilised” and “barbaric” colonial subject within occidental discourse, the cannibal is inextricably linked to constructions of the self and the Other. Its gluttonous overtones are often evoked to portray over-consumption and over-indulgence, which serve to foreground anxieties surrounding gender, sexuality, and power (Champion 5-6).
Aamis confronts these transgressions most blatantly in its exploration of infidelity, age-gap in romantic relationships, forbidden desires, and the blurred lines between platonic, romantic, and obsessive love. Cannibalism emerges as a metaphor for the desire to consume and be consumed in an otherwise repressive society that punishes all that fall outside the normative structure of the nuclear family. However, in a more literal sense, the film also presents cannibalism as a natural extension of one’s meat-eating practices. Viewed through the prism of “social practices that determine what can and cannot be eaten,” Aamis thus emerges as a potent commentary on the religious, regional, and caste contexts underlying culinary practices and associated taboos in Northeast India (Kilgour 6).
“The corruption begins with the mouth,
the tongue, the wanting.
The first poem in the world
is I want to eat.” (Jong 309)
By situating its plot in an urban, upper-middle-class family in modern-day Guwahati, Aamis confronts a dilemma reminiscent of what Betty Friedan famously termed as “the problem that has no name” back in 1963 (5-21). While Friedan referred to the sense of dissatisfaction and longing experienced by white, suburban housewives in mid-twentieth-century USA, the film’s protagonist, Nirmali, appears to grapple with similar feelings. She is the mother of a preteen son and a successful paediatrician, running her own clinic, yet something feels amiss about her idealised suburban lifestyle. The opening sequence establishes the humdrum of her daily life, punctuated by the persistent absence of her husband, Dilip, whose medical profession keeps him away from home at most times. Dilip’s benevolence, however, easily veers into a patronising saviour complex, evident when he boasts about his work and “service to the people” during a dinner party conversation. This same conversation epitomises the gendered dynamics of the household, where despite both being accomplished doctors, Nirmali is praised with the age-old saying, “Behind every successful man is a woman.” The richness of her inner life and desires are immediately reduced to the “love and support” that she can offer to her husband, who seldom reciprocates the same care and consideration.
Yet, the veil of the respectable and content nuclear family is thin at best. The opening sequence is followed by the chance encounter between Nirmali and Sumon, a PhD student of anthropology, who rushes to the former’s help when his friend suffers from a bout of nausea and illness. In order to repay Nirmali for her help and kindness, Sumon offers to cook meat for her, and the two soon develop a bond that borders on infidelity and centres their shared love for meat-eating. Viewers are also acquainted with Nirmali’s friend, Jumi, another urban wife, who openly engages in extra-marital affairs and discusses them with flirtatious candidness. By juxtaposing Jumi’s infidelity (somewhat socially accepted and even normalised within highbrow circles) with the ravenous appetite that engulfs Nirmali, the film calls into question the arbitrariness of our norms of desire. Are there certain transgressions that we are more willing to forgive and accept than others? What constitutes the ‘normal’ in desire, and who defines it? How far can one deviate from the normative before facing consequences for the transgression? And, most importantly, how long can one suppress their desires before they erupt, consuming everything in their wake?
When paralleled, it becomes apparent that both Jumi and Nirmali’s adulterous actions stem from the neglect and repression ingrained in patriarchal attitudes towards female desire. However, Nirmali appears to have internalised these norms to a far greater degree, resulting in some peculiar ways. She initially refuses to eat meat without silverware, suggesting both a class-based distance between her and Sumon, as well as the distance that she maintains between her desires and herself to adhere to the image of a respectable woman. Despite the growing sensuality in her relationship with Sumon, it remains strictly devoid of physical touch, and the latter continues to address her as baideo (an Assamese honorific used to address a woman older than you, literally translating to ‘elder sister’). Both remain steadfast in their refusal to label this as an extra-marital affair. Indeed, their suppression of unwanted desires is so strong that it steers them down a dark and convoluted path of exploring, in Sumon’s words, “other ways to get physical with your lover”. When Nirmali reaches the pinnacle of her voracity, hysterically declaring, “Today is my eating day! I shall eat today!”, it is as if she has awakened a primal hunger that had lain dormant within her all those years.
Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags (ESV Bible, Prov. 23.20-21).
In the first interaction between Nirmali and Sumon, the latter’s friend has suffered from indigestion after consuming meat for the first time as a life-long vegetarian. In an excellent moment of foreshadowing, Nirmali remarks, “Meat is not the problem. Gluttony is.” The looming threat of over-indulgence is established from the very outset as the two embark on a twisted path of culinary adventures. With his academic interest in meat-eating practices, Sumon introduces Nirmali to his “Meat Club,” where “like-minded students at the university” slaughter, cook, and relish unprocessed meat. Soon, meat becomes a canvas and a language for their intimacy to unfold, as Sumon introduces Nirmali to increasingly taboo meats, such as rabbit, bat, and finally, a piece of flesh from his own inner thigh.
The act of consumption in Aamis is marked by overtly sensual and erotic tones. The fever dream, where Sumon is consumed by the perverse urge to feed his flesh to Nirmali, is saturated with lustful imagery and words, such as, “How does it feel? Soon… You’ll be inside it.” Equally carnal is the reaction that Sumon’s meat elicits in Nirmali’s body and mind, as she envisions herself finally liberated, flowing freely through the air. The lovers are united in flesh and bone, however, Nirmali’s role remains fixated as the consumer or the devourer, evident when Sumon vomits the flesh that Nirmali presents to him from her own leg. This serves to illustrate the viscerally codependent dynamic of the duo, where one is driven to consume, while the other yearns to be consumed. Both succumb to their primal urges, but the cannibal figure of Nirmali emerges as the gluttonous carnivore—an object of both lust and repulsion.
Aptly, cannibalism serves as “a forceful reminder of how the human appetite is a life-driving force, and is the ultimate transgression of cultural mores” (Brown 4). While Nirmali is driven to a frantic attempt to feast at the morgue, Sumon, her naively devoted lover, ensures that the former gets her fill. In a chilling echo of “the rich eat the poor”, Sumon murders a rickshaw puller and dismembers him to present his limbs to his beloved. However, he is caught in the act by the police, leading to the arrest of the ravenous duo. Monstrous as they may have been, both the audience and Nirmali recognise Sumon’s actions as deeply romantic. The vast chasm of physical touch that had once separated them is finally bridged as the two hold hands in the film’s closing scene. Amid a sea of policemen and journalists, the two stand together, their faces shrouded in shame, yet their hands clasped in everlasting devotion.
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live (Harjo).
Apart from tackling transgressions of the flesh, Aamis confronts the cultural norms and sociopolitical contexts associated with food practices in Northeast India. Given their peripheral position in relation to the politics, culture, and geography of the mainland, the Northeastern states have been subjugated to an exclusionary and alienating brand of food politics. While the consumption of beef, fish, mutton, pork, dog meat, pangolin meat, and a wide variety of insects has traditionally found a place among the diverse religious and tribal communities of Assam, these food groups remain relatively absent from mainland cuisine (Jacob and Chattaraj 3). Accordingly, food politics has manifested as attempts to police and “restrict the availability of food groups that are not aligned with the consumption patterns of the mainland” (Jacob and Chattaraj 4). Government policies, such as the Assam Cattle Preservation Bill that banned beef consumption in the state in 2021, also become tools of communal and casteist violence, since meat-eating practices and livelihoods like leather-work and butchery have been traditionally associated with Dalit and Muslim communities (Parikh and Miller 838). Brahmanical hegemony in food is maintained through the valorisation of vegetarianism, which not only obscures the plurality of food practices in the country, but also legitimises a form of culinary untouchability in the ‘vegetarian/non-vegetarian’ divide (Sophan 263-265).
The film appears to take these pejorative stereotypes and contradictions head on, such as when the protagonists entertain the idea of consuming dog meat. Sumon’s scholarly interest in meat-eating practices allows him to look past the arbitrary norms and customs imposed by each society on the consumption of certain foods. When others scorn in disgust at the thought of eating crow or bat meat, he profoundly remarks, “Actually, the definition of ‘normal’ isn’t universal. When it comes to eating meat, what’s normal for you may be abnormal for others.”
In Aamis, the desire for food and flesh intertwine in fascinating ways, as the literal consumption of meat, and the inherent desires they symbolise, render Sumon and Nirmali as perpetually Othered subjects. In a society that is xenophobic, casteist, and sexually repressive, meat becomes “a mode of expressing liminality, along with the awareness of the body politic” (Sarmah 34-35). Their cannibalism represents a defiance of sexual norms, as well as the resistance towards dietary restrictions imposed through cultural appropriation (Jacob and Chattaraj 7). Violating all norms of respectability, Nirmali and Sumon ultimately emerge as defiant subjects—marginalised and rejected by ‘civilised’ society, yet united and fulfilled in the true essence of their marginality.
Thus, rather than a gimmicky, gruesome, cannibalistic horror film, Aamis presents a rich and compelling counter narrative to normative desires and appetites. Through the exploration of an enigmatic bond, it viscerally portrays the experience of Othering, along with the sociocultural contestations that underlie it. The result is a film that inspires both awe and disgust, provokes both empathy and repulsion, and ultimately portrays the profound hunger we harbour and suppress, lest it be unleashed in a ravenous manner.
Brown, Jennifer. Cannibalism in Literature and Film. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Champion, Giulia. “Introduction: A Severed Head on a Silver Platter: Bloody Banquets, Revenge Cannibalism and Future Foodways.” Interdisciplinary Essays on Cannibalism: Bites Here and There, edited by Giulia Champion, Taylor & Francis, 2021, pp. 3-7.
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. Penguin, 1963.
Harjo, Joy. “Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo.” Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49622/perhaps-the-world-ends-here. Accessed 17 May 2024.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2006.
Jacob, Alicia, and Dishari Chattaraj. “Forbidden Cravings: Exploring socio-cultural ramifications of food practices in Aamis.” Rupkatha Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 14, no. 2, 2022, pp. 1-10.
Jong, Erica. “Where It Begins.” Poetry Foundation | February 1971, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31811. Accessed 16 May 2024.
Kilgour, Maggie. From Communion to Cannibalism: An Anatomy of Metaphors of Incorporation. Princeton University Press, 1990. Accessed 16 May 2024.
Naahar, Rohan. “Aamis movie review: A maniacal feast for hungry masses; irresistibly insane.” Hindustan Times, 4 October 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/others/aamis-movie-review-anurag-kashyap-presents-a-maniacal-feast-for-hungry-masses-an-irresistibly-insane-romance-101633333028391.html. Accessed 16 May 2024.
Parikh, Aparna, and Clara Miller. “Holy Cow! Beef Ban, Political Technologies, and Brahmanical Supremacy in Modi’s India.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, vol. 18, no. 4, 2019, pp. 835-874.
Prajapati, Rajiv. “Aamis: When Forbidden Romance Takes a Dark Turn.” MovieWeb, 24 October 2023, https://movieweb.com/31-days-of-horror-day-24-aamis/. Accessed 16 May 2024.
Sarmah, Riswtia. “Forbidden Love, Meat and Cannibalism: An Analysis of Bhaskar Hazarika’s Aamis (Ravening).” Southeast Asian Review of English, vol. 59, no. 2, 2022, pp. 20-38.
Sophan, Angel. “Psychology of Caste in Food: A Letter to My Upper Caste Friend.” CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, vol. 5, no. 22, 2024, pp. 259-269.
Thakur, Tanul. “Movie Review: Without Trying to, ‘Aamis’ Tells Us Love By Itself Is Not Enough.” TheWire, 24 November 2019, https://thewire.in/film/aamis-movie-review. Accessed 15 May 2024.
Sanika Singh (they/she) is a second-year undergraduate student majoring in political science at Miranda House, University of Delhi. An intersectional queer feminist, she is passionate about gender, media, politics, and film criticism.
