Today, I came across a bunch of responses from my fellow food bloggers and many others from Trivandrum, essentially condemning what was said by Mrinal Das Vengalat, a fellow blogger and a restaurant management consultant, in his blog recently… I didn’t really want to respond to it but after many requests to do so, here we go… 🙂
The “Crime Scene”
The following is the video that everybody is talking about right now…
Apparently, in the video at around 0:59, he is accusing the people of Trivandrum to be mostly those for whom when it comes to food, only thing that matters is quantity and that its cheap… He then adds that most people here don’t care about quality especially taste and even hygiene as long as they get big quantities for the price…
My Thoughts On This
The problem I felt about his statement is that he seems to be, in an arrogant way, judging the people of Trivandrum based on how many people eat at a 5 star place and also how well he was able to enjoy the food at that 5 star place, which is indeed a ridiculous analysis cause obviously most people in, not just Trivandrum, but any city in India and also the entire world, are those who really cannot afford to eat at 5 star restaurants on a regular basis and taste is obviously a personal matter… At best among that most, we have a sizable middle class who can afford to go to such places once or twice in a year ie special occasions while otherwise goto less priced / affordable places… So, it seems like according to him, anyone who doesn’t eat at 5 star places are among those who can’t appreciate quality and are among those who go behind quantity and low price without any consideration of hygiene while making the accusation that culturally we are a group of people who can’t appreciate quality when it comes to food… That is indeed a ridiculous accusation… Also, unless he has done this deliberately for negative publicity or some other interests, it seems that clearly, he has not bothered to do much research on the food options in Trivandrum and has made the statement entirely based on the supposedly bad personal experiences that he ended up having… I mean at the very least if he had read the food review posts here or from any other fellow food blogger based here, he would’ve got enough examples of places that are affordable and do serve good quality food in excellent hygienic conditions… If Mrinal is reading this, I would encourage him to at least go thru the posts that I have written here…
At the same time, we must not forget to see the other side as well cause it is true that even in 2020, we still have people who prove Mrinal’s statement to be right (else please explain how restaurants who get caught serving even stale food again and again still has its doors open and are packed with customers)… But are they the majority like Mrinal seemed to have implied??? Certainly Not… Infact, at least based on my observation, the majority of the people of Trivandrum are those who prefer good quality and tasty food over quantity these days and I see more and more people willing to spend a bit extra as well for good food and besides, it really is an outdated concept that only 5 star places serve good food, especially that only expensive things are good… In fact I can give quite a number of examples of restaurants, eateries, etc who serve food and/or drinks that’s way better than any of the 5 star places for less than 1/3rd the pricing… So, while the outrage against him for making the statement is justified, I for one think that its equally important to observe and understand where he is coming from and if possible make the necessary corrections to ourselves if needed… So, what I would like to say to my fellow bloggers is that instead of just spending effort to “pongala idal” Mrinal in social media, how about identifying, educating and encouraging those who still prefer quantity over quality and hygiene to think differently??? How about inviting Mrinal himself over and show him how good the food scene in Trivandrum really is???
I would say what he said was correct, only to an extent we are all aware off. Is Trivandrum the only place which is affected. Certainly not. As every place, trivandrumites are aware off such places. Mainly it was the expression and place where he passed the observation had people react to it. But as a blogger you should be aware of public sentiment.
Yep… It’s the difference between insult and constructive criticism…
First and foremost its his unbridled arrogance thats puts ppl off . Its OK to be a food Vlogger and provide inputs on various types of foods and restaurants. But more than that his video is nothing but a crass display of his pompousness and his self proclaimed popularity . He claims he charges 10 lakhs for restaurant consultancy . (some time back it was 1 lakh) Have all successful food chains , brands or names in this business started with the help of consultants like Mrinal ? Mrinal claims he is so busy that most of the times he has to turn ppl away from availing his ‘ services ‘. Plus any successful genuine entrepreneur will always display some his clients which not only shows his credibility but also his skills .Can he show atleast 10 restaurants who have availed his ‘ consultancy ‘ business ? IF he is really what he says he is why doesn’t he start his onw restaurant ? should be a hit if he is a ‘ know-it-all’ in this line of work ?? At the moment the only skill he manages to show people are his free food chomping and his dumb comments praising his own self …. The backlash that he faced was not specifically from TVM ppl but also from other listeners who were disgusted with his ” pongacchams ” ……..On a flip side though his videos are great source of material to mock ‘ pretenders ‘ and freeloaders like him ……
Even I find it weird that there is absolutely no information about his consultancy firm / services no matter how much you try searching in google… So, all I can guess is that either he is bluffing, which means he is no different from any other seemingly wealthy social media influencer, or maybe he is banking on the “exclusivity” tactic which is known to work among the super wealthy / elite demographic (same reason why we have a matrimony site exclusively for IIT/IIM graduates in our country) in the way he runs his consultancy firm…