Mumbai, Dec 10 International filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, best known for acclaimed films such as Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, may have built a global career, but she remains deeply rooted in her Indian, especially Punjabi, identity.
Talking to IANS, the renowned filmmaker opened up on her love for Bollywood and how she grew up watching the cult classic Baiju Bawra. “The film I grew up watching was my dad’s absolute favourite, ‘Baiju Bawra’,” said Cadha while talking to IANS. “When I met my husband, I told him he had to watch it before meeting my father, because this one film would tell him everything about our family,” she quipped.
The filmmaker added, “I grew up seeing my dad and my uncle, after a few drinks, singing Mohammad Rafi and Naushad’s songs with full emotion. THAT was my childhood. Even in Australia, my chacha (uncle) still does the same thing,” she informed. The filmmaker recollected her husband’s first reaction to Baiju Bawra. “He tried really hard to stay awake because it’s such a long film. And then, when it finally ended, he looked at me shocked and said, ‘What? They die? After all that razzmatazz, they die?’ He was completely stunned,” she elaborated.
"I told him, ‘Yes, that’s the beauty of it. They die together, and that is why people love the film, they are united in death and will come back together in some other life.’ He just stared at me and said, ‘This is crazy!’”
The globally acclaimed filmmaker, who throughout her journey as a filmmaker has been a strong cultural representative for Indian voices in Western cinema, while talking to IANS, also shared a candid reflection on the challenges she still continues to face as a British-Indian filmmaker, especially in the Western countries.
Chadha told IANS about how identity politics still follow her work, even after decades of success. “I am always conscious of the fact that someone like me doesn’t look like what filmmakers typically look like in the West,” she said. Gurinder added. “Someone like me, or like my parents, has had to struggle to be seen for who we truly are. So, just the fact that I am making films in Britain is a political act, because I am telling stories from my own perspective.”
Chadha highlighted that despite proving her strength and sheer capacity as a top-notch filmmaker with movies like Bend It Like Beckham and Bride and Prejudice, Indian perspectives are still considered commercially failed in Western markets. “There is still this perception that if you cast an Indian actor in the lead in a Western movie, it won’t be commercially successful. I am constantly being put into boxes by others, and I am constantly breaking out of those boxes and bending the rules,” said Chadha.
On the professional front, Gurinder Chadha is now all set up for the release of her upcoming festive movie, The Christmas Karma, starring Hollywood’s popular Indian-origin actor Kunal Nayyar.
For the uninitiated, the film also features a special song – a Bollywood-style version of the iconic holiday song ‘Last Christmas’ sung by global superstar Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The movie releases on the 12th of December in India.
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