Soul Company and Supper Club: Boiled Beans

Soul | Stories | Identity 

I love Supper Clubs. Not just for the food but for the sense of warmth and community, the feeling of excitement and discovery, of seeking common ground over food. In Bangalore, the definitive Supper Club is run by Kanishka Sharma with her partner in crime Pallavi Mithika Menon. 

Even by Pallavi and Kanishka’s high standards, the dinner I attended this weekend was exceptional. They partnered with Somanna Muthanna’s The Soul Company to put together an event called Boiled Beans that sought to explore the idea of Bangalore through its citizens and their food. This was the Soul Company’s debut experience and it could hardly have been more special and memorable. 

Five people with a deep and abiding love for Bangalore... theatre legend Vijay Padaki, the face of mental health in India Anna Chandy, historian and the custodian of Bangalore’s memories Aliyeh Rizvi, the masterchef Gautam Kutty, and of course Kanishka herself along with Pallavi. Each of them looked back at their memories of Bangalore and what Bangalore means to them and sought to express that memory, that understanding through a dish. From Vijay Padaki’s jackfruits with ragi and raw banana to the aluminium “jail” plate and newspaper that Aliyeh Rizvi’s street food inspired prawn with avarekai and podi were served in... everything had a thought, a story, a reason. 

In many ways the evening transcended food. We live in a time when identity is increasingly used to divide, hardwired to recognise the other and what separates us rather than what unites us. To listen to these people from different communities and different religions speak about the Bangalore that they remember and know and love and strive to hold on to served as a powerful reminder that identity can also mean love, it can mean connection, it can meet community, that identity isn’t just individual but also shared memory, shared experience, shared dreams. It reminded me that there is more that unites us than divides us, whether it comes to the city we call home or this nation we call our own. 

I remember sitting with Somanna and talking about how life can and should be deeper and more meaningful. For him, Soul Company wasn’t so much a company and a business plan as much as it was a dream... naive and idealistic and hopeful, as all beautiful dreams should be. It was an idea, a hope, a search for a life with soul, not as an escape but on an everyday basis. It was and is an idea worth believing in, worth pursuing and worth sharing. 

This weekend I saw Supper Club and The Soul Company bring that idea to life, and it really felt that I was witnessing the birth of something magical....