Indian couple win $200,000 payout for 'food racism' after college told them to stop microwaving pungent curry lunches in office

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An Indian couple were handed a $200,000 settlement after they were told to stop microwaving curry in a shared office kitchen.

Aditya Prakash and his fiancée Urmi Bhattacheryya were handed the sum after accusing the University of Colorado at Boulder of discrimination and retaliation after a Prakash was told to stop microwaving what a staff member described as 'pungent' curry in the anthropology department.

The confrontation, centered on a dish of palak paneer, ultimately led to the revocation of the couple's PhD funding and a federal lawsuit alleging 'food racism.'

The university has now agreed to pay the couple a combined $200,000 to settle the case, while denying any liability.

As part of the agreement, the couple received their master's degrees and are barred from studying or working at the university in the future.

Prakash, an Indian citizen who was pursuing a doctorate in cultural anthropology, said the confrontation unfolded in September 2023.

He was heating up his meal when an administrative assistant remarked, 'Oof, that's pungent,' and told him there was a rule against microwaving strong-smelling food.

Prakash said the rule was not posted anywhere. When he later asked which foods qualified, he said he was told sandwiches were acceptable but curry was not.

Prakash said that it was the kind of remark that makes many Indians living in Western countries hesitant to open their lunches in shared spaces.

When he told the staff member he did not appreciate the comment, he said she began shouting.

Two days later, Prakash and four other students, including Bhattacheryya, deliberately reheated Indian food in the same microwave.

What followed, the lawsuit alleged, was swift and punitive. Prakash said he initially tried to minimize the encounter.

'Food is just food,' he recalled telling the staff member. 'I'll be out in a minute.'

But when he sat down to eat afterward he said, 'I felt the food sort of turned to ash in my mouth.'

The episode resurfaced during a class discussion on cultural relativism that Bhattacheryya was leading as a teaching assistant.

Soon after, the department circulated an email advising members to avoid preparing food with 'strong or lingering smells.'

Prakash replied to the entire department, calling the suggestion discriminatory and questioning why it was acceptable for another employee to heat chili in a crockpot.

When someone told him broccoli would also be inappropriate in a microwave, Prakash shot back: 'How many groups of people do you know that face racism on a daily basis because they eat broccoli?'

Over the following year, Prakash and Bhattacheryya said their academic standing collapsed without warning.

According to the lawsuit, faculty advisers dropped them unexpectedly. They were reassigned to advisers outside their fields. They were told they were making insufficient progress, denied course credit transfers, stripped of teaching assistantships, and ultimately lost their doctoral funding.

The university cited poor performance and unmet requirements which Prakash disputed.

'We were 4.0 G.P.A. students,' he said. 'And the department at every level started trying to sabotage us and started trying to paint us as somehow maladjusted.'

In May 2025, the couple filed a civil-rights lawsuit in US District Court in Denver, alleging discrimination and retaliation.

In September, the university agreed to settle. Under the terms of the agreement, Prakash and Bhattacheryya received a combined $200,000 payout and were awarded their master's degrees.

The university denied all liability and barred the couple from studying or working there again. The couple, who are engaged, have been living in India since October.

The University of Colorado, Boulder said federal privacy laws prevent it from discussing specifics but insisted it acted appropriately.

'When these allegations arose in 2023, we took them seriously and adhered to established, robust processes to address them, as we do with all claims of discrimination and harassment,' the university said in a statement.

It added that the anthropology department had worked to rebuild trust and foster 'an inclusive and supportive environment for all.'

Prakash told the BBC the lawsuit was never about financial gain.

'It was about making a point - that there are consequences to discriminating against Indians for their 'Indianness',' he said.

Prakash said the microwave incident reopened an old scar.

He recalled being isolated by classmates in Italy as a teenager because of the smell of Indian food in his lunchbox.

'I felt very diminished, because I was not marked by my identity in any way,' he said of the Colorado incident. 'Up until this point, I was just another PhD scholar.'

He and Bhattacheryya say they may never return to the US.

'No matter how good you are at what you do, the system is constantly telling you that because of your skin color or your nationality, you can be sent back any time,' Prakash said. 'The precarity is acute.'

The case has also sparked widespread attention in India, where many have shared their own experiences of being ridiculed abroad over food smells and ignited conversations about similar discrimination within India itself.

Food, scholars note, has long been used as a proxy for exclusion.

Krishnendu Ray, a food studies scholar at New York University, said complaints about smell have historically been used to mark groups as inferior.

'In some ways, this kind of thing happens whenever there is an encounter across class, race and ethnicity,' Ray said, noting how Italian immigrants were once derided in the US for smelling of garlic and wine.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613569)

One can only hope

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613574)

Entitled and inconsiderate Indians! BO is also an issue."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613580)

So they were paid $200k to go away

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613577)

He recalled being isolated by classmates in Italy as a teenager because of the smell of Indian food in his lunchbox.”

Maybe he should try eating his slop in India with other Indians

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613698)

whoever wins, we lose

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613751)

Idk if this is a typo or what but literally loled at "a Prakash"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613922)

The foreign student scam is insane and we need to talk about it more.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5825740&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310486#49613932)