Filmmaker Gurinder Chadha was born in Kenya and brought up in Britain. She started her career as a broadcast journalist in London, and went on to making short films and documentaries. As many NRIs do, Chadha often visited India to meet her relatives. Eventually she became interested, she says, in giving the UK “Asian community a centre-stage” position. Her first film, Bhaji on the Beach (1993), was about a group of Indians from Birmingham visiting the seaside at Blackpool. It won loud critical acclaim — and Chadha hasn’t looked back since. Her other films released in India were Bend It like Beckham (2003) and Bride and Prejudice (2004). Chadha had also written the screenplay of Mistress of Spices.
The director talks to Abhilasha Ojha about her latest film, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, which released on Friday. Starring Shabana Azmi, Shaheen Khan and Sendhil Ramamurthy, it tells the story of a woman who wants to see her overweight daughter married.
How did you manage to direct a full-fledged film and look after your babies at the same time?
[Laughs] Yes, my twins are gorgeous and they’re at that cute stage of talking in broken sentences. Being a mother has taught me — mostly — everything about crisis management and I’m glad I managed to arrange everything well before shooting It’s A Wonderful Afterlife. For starters, I kept a tight seven-week schedule for the film. Since I’m also the producer of the film, I chose to shoot at locations and create sets that were walking distance from my place so I could spend a lot of time with my children while working on the film. My kids, whenever they came to the sets, were fascinated with all the equipment, including cameras, lights, even chairs.
Tell us about It’s A Wonderful Afterlife
Well, it’s really a comedy, but I’ve added a unique horror element to it. I hadn’t worked in the horror genre before and I wondered what it would be like to integrate it in a film, essentially about a woman who genuinely wants her daughter to get married. People invariably expect a fun film from me but I wanted to inject a horror element and still keep the film’s fabric simple and effective.
While your films give us a glimpse into the Asian community living abroad, it’s the characterisation of the ‘mothers’ that’s also very interesting. How do you manage that?
I must tell you that most of the characters that you see in my films are people, including family members and relatives that I’ve met in real life. I am, after all, a part of the Asian community. I think that’s why the nuances in the numerous characters creep in while I’m writing my scripts. In fact, even when I visit gurdwaras, I’m closely observing people.
While on the surface, ‘mothers’ in most of my films are from Amritsar, their preoccupations are different. In Bend It Like Beckham the mother was far more traditional, prone to getting upset because her daughter wasn’t cooking and cleaning the house. She was different from, say, the mother in Bride and Prejudice who was obsessed with her daughters settling down. Mrs Sethi, the mother in It’s A Wonderful Afterlife, is upset that people reject her daughter because she’s overweight. She may be a serial killer but Mrs Sethi portrays a range of emotions.
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Do we, sometimes, see autobiographical content in your films? Especially areas where you’re tackling young girls and their mums?
[Laughs] I’m not too sure but yes, I do remember some of the pressures when I was of ‘marriageable age’. My mother was very concerned that I wear Indian clothes to weddings and other functions while I would turn up in three-piece suits with my hair dyed in shocking pink. She also wanted me to learn how to cook proper Indian food, including the perfect aloo-gobhi just like the mother in Bend It Like Beckham. However, at the same time, my parents always encouraged me to follow my dreams and have a career.
By the way, thanks to my kids, I cook very well.