Southall da Saga

Guests attending the screening of Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice, based on the Austen classic, next Sunday (a little before its global release on October 8), are expected to be attired in saris.

Another case of India being big in Britain or Hollywood meeting Bollywood? Chadha, with new haircut and new anticipation, doesn’t think so. She’s clear that the film ‘‘will mean the most to British Indians than anyone else in the world.’’ And she clarifies that Hertfordshire in her film has become Amritsar ‘‘because I am a Punjabi and Southall is very Punjabi. It is the capital of Punjab for me, only 3,000 miles away’’.

Chadha had read Pride and Prejudice in school. She says, ‘‘It is a British classic and I wanted to have a little bit of fun with it. It was an audacious idea, but when I started working on the film I realised how relevant it was. It has the same moral structure as seen in small Indian cities.’’

While the location is Amritsar, the film is British Indian. ‘‘I cannot make a Hindi film. My films are British films that keep pushing the limit,’’ she says.

It might be a Brit film, but the inspiration for Bride… was nothing but Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, a movie that Chadha has seen eight times. ‘‘It was DDLJ that got me back to Hindi films. It was responsible for getting theatrical cinema life in Britain.’’

‘‘I thought I would make a British version of something like DDLJ, because that was not realistic about our (British Indians) lives.’’

Chadha also says her portrayal of India is naturally different because she has never lived there. ‘‘My ancestors are from Jhelum, Rawalpindi. I have no home in India. My parents were from Kenya. Maybe that is why I have been free to create my own sense of homeland, and familiarity and recognition in the characters through people close to me.”

Thus,while the Bennetts become the Bakshis, for Chadha, they are still the ‘Uppals’. As a student, while travelling around India, she had lived with the Uppals in Amritsar; they had three daughters. She still remembers the oldest one being like Austen’s Elizabeth. The family was eager to get the girls married to men from a higher social stratum. The girls “were outspoken and resented the idea that they were not seen as complete without a husband”. The memory lingered, and finally the characters found expression through the movie inspired by Austen’s novel.

But will the film succeed in India? Chadha is not sure, but is optimistic. ‘‘The cheekiness has a lot to do with how we view Hindi cinema and absorb it. For us, it is part of other kinds of things like European and American films and TV. So people in India may say woh maza nahin aaya,’’ she says.

But, she argues, ‘‘Why should I make what Karan (Johar) makes? My film is for the non-Indian suburban audience from across the world.” And for them, the glitz of Bollywood is hip.

Chadha says Bride… “will take Hindi films to all kinds of people, even those who have never seen a Hindi film before”. She proudly recounts that a test screening for a white audience, who had never heard of Bollywood, was a big success. “They loved the innocence of the film. One member said she loved the fact that all the family went to parties together. They have a yearning for the culture I have shown.”

But Darcy (Martin Henderson) who bears the same name, wants to know if it is safe for him to eat pakoras because he does not want to get Delhi belly. And the younger sister of Elizabeth (Aishwarya Rai as Lalita), Mary (Meghna Kothari as Maya), who loves to play the piano, suddenly breaks into a gyrating snake-dance sequence, shocking not simply Darcy but most in the audience. Chadha laughs, “It’s a tribute to Sridevi and Vyjayanthimala.”

Snake charmers and elephants. Chadha’s latest Bollywood-masala-type take on a classic might work, but you can’t help feel that it is an India as the West still sees it.