Dining With The Kapoors: Armaan Jain reveals the Kapoor family are all ‘closet chefs’ at home
Armaan Jain opens up on the idea behind Dining With The Kapoors, the relationship of the family with Raj Kapoor and food, and mini version of their Chembur home
The dinner table conversations of the Bollywood’s legacy family, The Kapoors, became a household discussion with actor-entrepreneur Armaan Jain’s special documentary Dining With The Kapoors. The Kapoor clan gathered together on the legendary actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor’s birth anniversary for a special lunch menu curated by Armaan Jain.
For him, it was his way to “contribute to the food legacy of my family”. He says, “I just go to food first and that is very inherent as food is a large part of our family. From Raj Kapoor’s generation with Krishna Kapoor hosting film parties, our house always had this open house culture, ki sab aa jao aur khao. Actually we all are closet chefs at home. We love cooking and feeding. It's a tradition that's passed down. We want to keep spreading that love. ”
Armaan shares that since he never got to meet his grandfather, this was his way to pay an ode to him. “These are the stories I heard as I didn't meet my grandfather. I was not born when he was around, so it is generationally passing down. I also have a food business where I have preserved these recipes from our home, improvised them, and shared with the world. I felt that bringing the family, food, these memories, nostalgia, the legacy over a dining table in the way we are behind closed doors, it’s really us. I see a very honest side when I see my family around a dining table,” he says.
Ask him if any of the family members had any apprehension in bringing their dinner table chats in front of the world and he responds, “When we went to the family, they were in complete alignment because the vision I had is what they have as well. That's what they've seen growing up, exactly the same traditions, values and culture.”
With this film, Armaan admits he feels closer to his grandfather Raj Kapoor. “For both me and Aadar (Jain, actor), we are the youngest in our generation and we've not met him. Whatever we've heard is all through my mom and family members. You always wish that you met your grandfather who you’ve heard so much about, but luckily he gave us so many films that we could learn about him from. My mom has gifted me small letters of his and I preserve it, because these small physical assets make me feel closer to him,” he shares.
In the film, Armaan also presented the family with a surprise, a miniature version of their Chembur family home in Mumbai which is now sold. “You always latch onto a place that has given you so much. Let alone my generation, my parents' generation were obviously closer to the place. I might have few memories in them, but they obviously have more memories than I would have. The place is so meaningful for us. Since it wasn't available, the idea was to just recreate some memories from the space that we really enjoyed all of us together growing up. The physical avatar of it was maybe the icing on the cake. It just made us just happy and took us back into time,” he ends.
