As a child growing up in Kanpur, Pranjul Shukla wasn't particularly fond of the region's signature dish, matthe aloo ki sabji. Made with mashed potatoes cooked in a creamy, tangy yogurt sauce with spices, the fragrant curry was his father's favourite. "I just found it pheeka and boring," he recalls. His view underwent a 180 degree turn, when he moved to Mumbai in 2016 so that he could live the life he envisaged—Shukla identifies as bisexual. As he continued living by himself in Mira Road, memories of the dish started to grow on him. "It reminded me of home," he says. His mother would sometimes replace yoghurt with buttermilk as it was traditionally prepared using the latter.

By then, he had picked up the method of preparation. "Funnily, I started relishing it when I began to whip it up." To profess the new-found love, Shukla has chosen to showcase the recipe in a new queer-themed cookery webseries, Closet to Kitchen with Nakshatra Bagwe. A brainchild of Bagwe, a Mumbai-based actor and LGBTQi activist, the series trains the lens on ten queer individuals and their story, while weaving in the role food has played in their journey. The first episode, available on the Paramplay app, has Shukla in a soul-baring conversation with Bagwe at his suburban home.