Biryani as a Symbol of Family and Cultural Heritage in Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating

What Biryani Represents in the Novel

Biryani is a spiced rice dish cooked with meat, vegetables, and aromatics, and in the world of this novel it functions as more than a meal. It appears at moments of family reunion, emotional distress, communal celebration, and cultural performance. The dish recurs at least four times across the story, and each appearance carries a slightly different weight while remaining anchored to the same core ideas: family, heritage, and belonging.

Biryani as a Sisterly Bond

The first significant appearance comes in chapter three, when Ishu and her sister Nik prepare biryani together after Nik's surprise return from London. The cooking is a way for the sisters to reconnect after more than a year apart. Ishu notices that Nik's appearance has changed—shorter hair, highlights, a fuller figure—but the act of cooking together restores a familiar rhythm between them. The biryani becomes a shared domestic ritual that bridges the distance created by Nik's absence.

This moment matters because it establishes biryani as a language of family intimacy. Ishu and Nik don't need to talk about what Nik is hiding; they simply cook. The dish does the emotional work that words cannot yet do.

The motif returns in chapter fifty-one, when Ishu and Hani travel to London for Nik's wedding. Nik has said she is skipping the holud because the wedding is small, but Ishu and Hani insist on planning one. The next morning, while Hani prepares turmeric paste and mehndi, Ishu and Nik work together to cook a large pot of biryani. This mirrors the chapter three scene almost exactly: two sisters, a kitchen, a pot of biryani. But the context has shifted. In chapter three, the biryani was cooked in the family home before a tense dinner that ended in silence. In chapter fifty-one, it is cooked in Nik's own apartment, for a celebration Nik's parents have refused to attend. The biryani now represents the family that Ishu and Nik are building for themselves, even as their parents stay away.

Biryani as Comfort and Maternal Connection

In chapter twenty-five, biryani appears in a different register. Hani has just left Ishu on the Luas after a conversation that left her confused and hurt. She is soaked from the rain, ignoring messages from Ishu and from her friends. She wants to talk to someone but cannot confide in her mother about the fake dating. So she asks Amma to watch a movie with her.

Amma suggests making akhni, which the text identifies as Sylheti biryani—the superior form of biryani in Hani's family's view. Hani persuades her to order biryani from Suraj Uncle's restaurant instead, because akhni takes too long. They spend the afternoon eating biryani and watching the Bollywood film Khoobsurat.

This scene is notable for what the biryani does. It is not home-cooked; it is takeout. But it still functions as comfort food, a way for Hani to ground herself in something familiar when her emotional world has been upended. The biryani connects her to her mother, to her culture, and to a domestic space where she can temporarily pretend her problems don't exist. The text says that for a little while, she manages to pretend her problems don't exist—and the biryani is part of that pretense.

The akhni distinction is also significant. Akhni is a specific Sylheti preparation, and Hani's family considers it superior to the generic biryani from Suraj Uncle's restaurant. This detail shows that biryani is not a monolithic symbol. It carries regional specificity and family history. The fact that Hani is willing to settle for takeout biryani rather than insisting on akhni suggests her emotional state: she needs comfort quickly, and she cannot wait for the slow, careful preparation that akhni requires. The dish still works, but it is a slightly diminished version—much like Hani's current relationship with Ishu, which has been shaken.

Biryani as Hospitality and Cultural Performance

In chapter twenty-eight, biryani appears as part of the elaborate dawat that Ishu's parents host. Ammu is in the kitchen from five o'clock on Saturday morning, cooking and cleaning. When Ishu offers to help, Ammu tells her to go study. The biryani is one dish among many—the table in chapter twenty-nine is laid with biryani, chicken korma, lamb curry, white rice, mixed vegetable curry, fish cutlet, and shorisha ilish, Aparna Aunty's specialty.

In chapter twenty-nine, Hani attends the dawat with her parents. She notes the aroma of the biryani as absolutely divine and observes that the food tastes even better than it looks. The dawat is a space where Bengali identity is performed and displayed—the food, the clothing, the greetings, the chatter. Hani's own father wears a panjabi and tupi, and Ishu wears a salwar kameez that softens her usual hard edges.

Here, biryani functions as hospitality and cultural display. It is the centerpiece of a meal that brings the community together. But the scene also carries tension: Hani is there to confront Ishu about the guide, and the biryani is part of the elaborate social performance that surrounds their private conflict. The dish is both a comfort and a backdrop for discomfort.

This connects to the theme of performance vs authenticity. The dawat is a performance of Bengali hospitality, just as Hani and Ishu's relationship is a performance of dating. The biryani is authentic—it is real food, cooked with care—but it is served within a social context that involves its own kind of acting.

Biryani and the Themes of Family and Belonging

Across all its appearances, biryani is tied to family. It is cooked by sisters, ordered by a daughter for her mother, and prepared by a mother for guests. It is never eaten alone. The dish always brings people together, even when the togetherness is strained.

This connects to the theme of immigrant parental expectations and conditional approval. In Ishu's family, the biryani at the dawat is part of a larger system of expectation: Ishu must study, must perform well, must prove herself. The food is abundant, but the approval is conditional. In chapter fifty-one, the biryani at Nik's holud is cooked in the absence of the parents who refused to attend—a quiet assertion that family can be chosen and built, even when biological family withholds support.

The dish also connects to cultural identity and belonging between worlds. Hani's white Irish friends, Aisling and Dee, have no equivalent for dawats, and Hani struggles to explain her Bengali life to them. Biryani is part of that world they cannot access. When Hani orders biryani with her mother, she is participating in a cultural practice her friends would not understand—just as she cannot explain to them why she must pray or why she cannot sleep over.

Study Questions

1. How does the biryani in chapter three differ in meaning from the biryani in chapter fifty-one?

In chapter three, Ishu and Nik cook biryani together in the family home, shortly before Nik announces her plan to take a year off from medical school. The biryani is a gesture of sisterly connection, but the meal ends in silence and parental anger. In chapter fifty-one, the sisters cook biryani again, this time in Nik's own apartment, for a holud that Nik's parents have refused to attend. The biryani now represents a family the sisters are building for themselves—one that includes Hani and Nik's chosen community, even as their biological parents stay away. The dish carries the same domestic intimacy, but its context has shifted from a family under strain to a celebration of chosen family.

2. Why does Hani choose takeout biryani over Amma's akhni in chapter twenty-five?

Hani is emotionally distressed after her conversation with Ishu on the Luas. Amma offers to make akhni, which is Sylheti biryani and, in Hani's family's view, superior to regular biryani. But akhni takes a long time to prepare. Hani persuades Amma to order biryani from Suraj Uncle's restaurant instead, so they can watch the movie together without spending the day in the kitchen. The choice reflects Hani's need for immediate comfort—she cannot wait for the slow, careful preparation that akhni requires. The takeout biryani is a diminished version of the ideal, much like Hani's current relationship with Ishu, which has been shaken by the guide's discovery.

3. What role does biryani play in the dawat scenes in chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine?

The biryani is part of the elaborate spread Ammu prepares for the dawat, cooking from early morning. It functions as hospitality and cultural display, a centerpiece of a meal that brings the Bengali community together. But the dawat is also a space of performance: Hani is there to confront Ishu about the guide, and the social rituals of the gathering—the greetings, the clothing, the food—create a backdrop of normalcy against which their private conflict plays out. The biryani is authentic food, but it is served within a social context that involves its own kind of acting, connecting to the novel's broader theme of performance versus authenticity.

4. How does biryani connect to the theme of cultural identity and belonging?

Biryani is a food that Hani's white Irish friends cannot fully access or understand. When Aisling and Dee ask about Hani's Bengali things, Hani struggles to explain a world that has no Irish equivalent. Biryani is part of that world—a dish shared with family, cooked at dawats, ordered with her mother. It represents a cultural identity that exists alongside, and sometimes in tension with, Hani's life at school. For Ishu, biryani is similarly tied to family expectations and the pressure to prove herself. The dish is a concrete marker of belonging—to a family, to a culture, to a community—even when other forms of belonging (friendship, romance, parental approval) are uncertain.