Ather Energy Responds After Facing Backlash Over Chapati in Onam Sadya

Tarun Mehta, Co-founder of Ather Energy, shared the photos on X of him and Swapnil Jain, Co-founder of Ather Energy, in traditional Kerala attire and in the pictures, the employees can be seen having the Onam Sadya but what sparked the backlash was the inclusion of chapati in the meal.

Onam is the major festival of Kerala state and is celebrated by most of the people of the State. Onam Sadya consists of a variety of dishes served on banana leaves and Chapati is not part of the Sadya meal.

Netizens criticised the post of the Onam Saya posted by Tarun Mehta and here are some of the comments:

A user commented, “Poverty ridden onam Sadya - there should be at least 28 dishes, also chapati shouldn't be there.”

“Chapati instead of rice, blasphemy,” commented another user.

Third user commented,”Please tell me that’s not a chappatti!!!”

“What next??? Litti choka in Sadya????” commented the fourth user.

The Bengaluru-based startup responded to the criticism and in an official statement the company said, “There have been reports of a particular lunch served at one of our offices recently. This occurred a few days ago wherein chapati was seen on a banana leaf. Thankfully no Malayalees were hurt in this incident. Our teams have looked at the photo and identified the root cause. While the photo showed a chapati on the banana leaf, what it failed to capture was the white rice and brown rice served thereafter. Rice, Sambar and other curries remained completely unaffected during this incident. All items in the Sadya were made by Malayalee chefs at a facility in Bengaluru and served by Malayalee colleagues.”

“We would like to further clarify that chapati was an option for our colleagues who respect personal choices. However, we'd like to admit that some extra papadams were damaged while being relished with payasam. This was a rare lapse of judgement on our end, and have since conducted numerous cultural sensitivity workshops to prevent any such occurrences. With love, 135 Malayalees at Ather,” read the official statement.