How a coffee conversation pulled Hansal Mehta back into food storytelling after three decades

A casual coffee chat with Vijay Subramaniam — followed by a dinner cooked by filmmaker Hansal Mehta — is what brought Mehta back to food storytelling after more than three decades, this time with an unexpected collaborator: artificial intelligence.

Subramaniam, the founder and Group CEO of Collective Artists Network, recalled that it was just the two of them sitting together when 'Khana Khazana' came up in conversation, and despite thinking Mehta might not just reject, but even get annoyed by, the suggestion of working with AI, he still pitched the idea of creating something together.

Mehta is returning to the genre with 'Khana Dil Se – An AI Journey Through India’s Kitchen', a new series backed by Collective Artists Network and True Story Films that explores India’s culinary histories, migration stories, oral traditions, and cultural memory with artificial intelligence as a "creative collaborator".

The project also reflects Collective Artists Network’s growing push into AI-assisted storytelling and culturally rooted intellectual property through initiatives such as its HistoryVerse slate, mythology-inspired projects, AI-native influencers, and digital celebrity IP.

For Mehta, AI became the unlikely collaborator that finally helped him return to a genre he had long missed. "A lot of people keep telling me that I should host a food show. I don’t have the looks or the inclination all the time to host a food show," he said. "I think I found the perfect collaborator to do it. And that perfect collaborator is not Vijay. It’s AI."

But what does AI as a creative collaborator actually mean in practice?

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For Subramaniam, the idea is not to replace creators, but to expand what they can do. "There’s a huge misnomer on AI being replacive. It’s not. It’s additive," he said. "The real way of building a creator-tech platform is by actually letting the tech respond to creators and not the other way around."

According to him, AI allows creators to reduce logistical constraints and experiment at scale. "Imagine shooting a show like this. You would take at least 30 days of prep. You’d have to do location scouting, get a cast, hire a crew. Here, output can be made faster — but it would not have happened without certain human inputs," he said.

The Shahid director, meanwhile, described AI as a collaborator that pushes creators beyond the limits of their own imagination. "AI has been very liberating. Things that I could imagine, it is able to show me — and go beyond that. It is able to push me into things that I thought were not possible," he said.

The episodic series traces stories of identity and memory through recipes passed down across generations, and marks a full-circle moment for Mehta, who created 'Khana Khazana' in the 1990s, the iconic cookery show that turned chef Sanjeev Kapoor into a household name.

"I’ve never been away from the food television scene. Whether it was making 'Khana Khazana', even after that, I’ve kept myself in touch with it. It is an integral part of my life. It’s how I began my journey as a filmmaker," Mehta said.

The filmmaker admitted that despite moving into mainstream cinema, he often found himself missing food storytelling. "I went through periods of FOMO — why am I not doing this? Why am I still not doing this? I used to compensate for it by cooking myself," he said.

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Mehta described recipes as his "love language", saying many of his friendships — including with chefs Ranveer Brar and Vikas Khanna — have revolved around exchanging recipes and culinary memories. Recalling one such exchange, he said Khanna once wanted him to watch his film, to which the Scam 1992 maker responded with "only one condition — send me one mutton recipe."

For Mehta, however, the series is ultimately less about technology and more about food as a cultural archive. "We are united by food and divided by everything else that is created by man — whether it is caste, religion, class, everything. We are divided by everything else, but always united by food," he said.

He added that the technology allowed him to experiment visually in ways that conventional filmmaking could not. He pointed to sequences where the viewer is placed almost inside the cooking process itself, something he says would not have been possible through conventional filming techniques.

"The audio-visual medium is two-dimensional. It gives you the illusion of immersion, but it does not allow you to smell or feel enough. What this is helping me explore is — how do I immerse myself further? How do I almost smell the food?" he said.

Even as both spoke enthusiastically about AI, Mehta acknowledged that the technology also raises unresolved creative and ethical questions. "We have not perfected the man-machine collaboration in the age of artificial intelligence yet," he said. "There are multiple ethical questions that keep getting raised now and then."

Still, the filmmaker compared the current AI transition to earlier technological shifts in cinema. "When I made my first film, Anurag Kashyap wrote that script on paper with his pen. Many years later, we started using Final Draft to write scripts. Did the scripts get better because of Final Draft? No. I think we got better at writing scripts," he said. "So ultimately, the artist comes first."

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Subramaniam believes AI could also democratise storytelling by allowing younger creators to experiment more freely. "AI is the new technology. It’s the new internet," he said. "I just feel that if we can play a small part in ensuring that everyone who has a vision for a story has the tools to tell that story, then that’s the win."

At a time when conversations around entertainment are increasingly dominated by shrinking attention spans and algorithm-driven content, both Mehta and Subramaniam rejected the idea that audiences no longer have patience for immersive storytelling.

"I unfortunately don’t agree with this whole attention span theory. I believe there’s attention for anything that is engaging," Mehta said. "Even now, the biggest hit among audiences is a four-hour film. So what does that tell you about attention span? It tells you that the audience has attention as long as you know how to engage with them."

Subramaniam agreed, arguing that the challenge today is less about shorter attention spans and more about competing for attention in an overcrowded ecosystem. "It’s not so much about attention spans decreasing, but more about how you get attention when there is so much going on," he said. "If you serve something that the audience wants, people will stay and people will support it."

Mehta compared the current AI moment to the way the IPL transformed cricket. "Many people said the IPL was going to finish cricket off. What it actually did was democratise cricket," he said. "The number of amazing young cricketers that we found because of the IPL — they don’t even need to play for the country anymore and yet they have opportunities."

"We are on the cusp of the creator’s IPL," Mehta says. "AI is that Premier League that we are approaching."

The first episode of 'Khana Dil Se – An AI Journey Through India’s Kitchen' drops on May 12 on Terribly Tiny Tales' YouTube channel