Samosas never out of season!

Bollywood is obsessed with this deep fried snack
The first thing a tabloid entertainment editor told theatre owner Shyam Shroff when he invited her over for the soft launch of one of his multiplexes is, ``The samosas aren’t good. Please change the samosa supplier if you want better patronage.’’
The exhibitor is said to have paid immediate heed to the scribe’s suggestion.Shorff being an old hand in the theatres business knows that Bollywood’s obsession with the samosa is deep rooted.
``A bad film will still be tolerated,’’ says a trade expert. ``Bad samosas will never be forgiven.’’
The deep fried snack-made of peas and potatoes has been a staple on the Hindi film industry menu for nearly four decades now.
Statistics show that theatres across India consume the largest number of samosas. Numbers say that in Mumbai and Thane nearly 40,000 samosas are supplied each day to the 175 odd screens. Two famous eateries Gurukripa and A-I from Sion have the largest theatre contracts. But samosas from sweetmeat shops like Punjabi Ghasitaram and Punjab Sweet House also make their way to the menu of every press show held in the country.
Celebrated critics like Anupama Chopra and Rajeev Masand steer clear of this deep fried snack-Chopra preferring to carry an energy bar instead; while there are some others who have developed a samosa phobia.
Says the editor of a film weekly, ``I never eat samosas because they’re so unhealthy. It can raise your cholesterol levels to an alarming high.’’
She also feels that it is highly insensitive on a film-producer’s part to feed scribes samosas for two decades now. ``They have been on the menu for at least 20 years now,’’ she says.
But of course her complaint is bound to fall on deaf ears because if there are press sorts who hate the sight of this deep-fried snack, there is an equal number advocating its merits.
Trade consultant Amod Mehra couldn’t stay away from the samosa till his recent illness.
Says Mehra, ``One of the things my wife Vyjayanti and I looked forward to in a theatre is the samosas.''
Film critic Johnson Thomson says he is partial to the snack because it is the only thing that has a standardised taste.
Of course the samosa travails don’t end with a press shows alone. They are also omnipresent at the press conferences held at five star hotels.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra had at least six press conferences over a two-month period during his last film release at five-star locations but served the press samosas. The beauty of this is—that whether the conferences were held at noon or late evening, the samosa stayed steady.’’
Of course Bollywood obsession for this triangular snack is not recent. Film scribes remember that when they visited Ashok Kumar at his Chembur residence, way back in 80s, the thespian would lay down a condition saying that he wouldn’t start the interview unless they gobbled up the two samosas he ordered especially for them from the neighbouring eatery Jhamas.
And one hears that after years of eating healthy; the ultra-fit Sunny Deol has actually developed a deep taste for this fried snack. Post Yamla Pagla Deewana he's back to eating healthy.
Hrithik Roshan who had to pile up some 30-odd kilos for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Guzaarish also gave in to the charms of this triangular snack, but now he's back to a high protein diet.
And in the days when Sonam Kapoor was obese, she would actually eat more samosas than the rest of her family put together. No surpirse why the samosa is a Bollywood staple.