Mumbai event: Exhibition showcases Indian restaurants from around the world

Taste of India mdash three words that youre bound to spot on the signboard of at least one desi restaurant in every major city around the world Step inside one of these and youre likely to find framed photographs of the Taj Mahal speakers playing soft classical music and a menu filled with items such as naan bread and butter chicken These are the restaurants selling brand India on a plate and from tomorrow you can delve deeper into this phenomenon by heading to an exhibition titled The Real Taste of IndiaTaste of India restaurants in above Mexico and below CanadaLet it simmerChinar Shah and Nihaal Faizal artists from Bengaluru have curated the show Shah runs a home gallery called Home Sweet Home and teaches at Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology Faizal meanwhile has been involved in the organisation of various exhibition projects The exhibition is a commentary on homogenised national identity and the commercialisation of culture While the existing Taste of India restaurants across the globe arent part of a single large chain they use the same brand name and often employ similar strategies of design identity and deacutecor explains ShahThe Real Taste of India was first conceived as an exhibition by Shah Faizal and their friend Aileen Blaney The trio set up shop inside a Taste of India restaurant in Yelahanka New Town in Bengaluru and called the exhibition A Bit to Eat Over the last oneandahalf years Shah and Faizal have spent time further developing the projectButterly deliciousInterestingly the storefront pictures that have been used to announce the exhibition wont actually be a part of the show Theyre just there as reference material so people have an idea what to expect when they come in says Shah The installations make use of content taken from the Internet a medium that the curators believe shapes our understanding of the world and also of national identity For instance there is a sound piece that uses a texttospeech converter to repeat the words Taste of India in 51 accents This is a representation of the various ways in which people from different parts of the world pronounce the same phrase says ShahYet another part of the show involves travel postcards that are intentionally bereft of visuals Instead what you get are the postal addresses of hundreds of Taste of India restaurants We also have one work where we took the TripAdvisor ratings of 247 of these restaurants and converted them into magnets she addsOne installation has plates featuring diners reviews of a number of these restaurantsNo food for thoughtThe duo has deliberately chosen to exclude food from the narrative It was a conscious decision We opted to do this because so much of the material we have used in the exhibition is sourced from the Internet And when youre reading about a restaurant online you dont get to eat its food right says Shah The closest you will come to seeing food of any kind is a sculpture of the Indian map made entirely out of Amul butter The brand is closely tied to Indias identity so it only made sense to include it Moreover their tagline is The Taste of India Since the sculpture is made of butter it will melt through the duration of the exhibition This is also meant to signify the melting of boundariesChinar Shah and Nihaal FaizalTILLacircu00c2u0080u00c2u0088December 11 am to 7 pm Mondays closedATacircu00c2u0080u00c2u0088Mumbai Art Room Pipewala Building Fourth Pasta Lane ColabaCALL 9757403293