Calcutta calling: Aadya Bedi as Damini in Koel

Bonny baby for Bengali filmmaker

Having worked for 14 years as a film censor in London, Bonny Mukherjee asked herself: “Why don’t I make a film myself?” She did just that. Bonny shot Koel, in which events are observed through the eyes of a small village boy who is taken on as a domestic servant in a middle-class Delhi home.

But when it came to post production, Bonny was disenchanted by the unhelpful attitude of the Mumbai studios.

“What’s your budget?” was the first thing they would ask Bonny.

It was Rs 46 lakh.

“They just weren’t interested in a small budget film like mine,” Bonny tells me.

She had shot the film at her own family home in Delhi. One of the few professional members of the cast was Aadya Bedi, who plays Damini, the mistress of the household.

“She is Kabir Bedi’s niece and lives in New York,” says Bonny, who lives in London and is married to the former BBC broadcaster William Crawley.

Post production on Koel was done in Calcutta, which she now recommends to anyone who thinks the Mumbai studios have overpriced themselves. And the standard of the work in Calcutta — she went to EditFX Studios for colour grading and Dream Digital Studio for sound audio — was every bit as good.

Judging from Bonny’s experience, there appear to be opportunities for Calcutta studios to get a share of the post-production work coming India’s way from the US and elsewhere in the West.

As a censor for the British Board of Film Classification, Bonny has put up with “a lot of rubbish” over the years but she has also seen some great European movies. “I am an admirer of Bunuel, Fellini, Wong Kar-wai and wanted to do something quite different to the normal Indian films.”

Bonny says: “I wanted to make an off-beat ‘quirky’ film. The film is a first in India for being shot as seen through the eyes of the boy servant.”

I enjoyed Koel — a slow unravelling of a dysfunctional family. A good for nothing unemployed husband, who is resentful his wife is the breadwinner, repeatedly flicks water into her face at dinner until she is forced to abandon her food. Damini, a talented fashion designer, tries to make a life for herself but after an accident her efforts come to nothing.

Bonny is planning a second screening in London. Koel would intrigue Mini Jaya audiences in north Calcutta.

 

India Blues

Model conduct: Erin ’Connor

While debate rages over whether the UK government should continue giving aid worth £250 million a year to India, the supermodel Erin ’Connor has been quietly raising money for a charity that has expressed serious concern about the estimated 48 million malnourished Indian children.

Erin, 34, described by Karl Lagerfeld as “one of the best models in the world”, has just returned from India after a trip on behalf of Save the Children.

“It’s impossible to underestimate the impact that Save the Children has once you have seen the positive benefits of their work which enable children to live their lives,” she said.

Erin was one of those who graced a Night of Blues event in London that was also attended by Samantha Cameron, an ambassador for the charity.

Odd though it might seem, holding glamorous events to raise money for starving children has become an accepted part of London life — rich Indians do it all the time.

 

Royal support: Prince Charles with Laila Rouass

Windsor outing

You can say one thing for Prince Charles — he does like being surrounded by Asian celebs.

He volunteered Windsor Castle as the venue for dinner for supporters of the British Asian Trust, a charity set up by Asian businessmen at his behest to finance health, education and enterprise projects in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the UK.

Those present included music producer Rishi Rich, actor Nitin Ganatra who appears in the soap EastEnders and actress Laila Rouass, born in London to a Moroccan father and an Indian mother.

Laila said she supported the trust because of its work with education. “That is something that is really important to me.”

The celebrities certainly like dressing up and coming to Windsor Castle, which is probably their main purpose for the evening.

Prince Charles, though, is incredibly well-meaning. “What has been incredibly heartening, if I may say so, is the way that communities in this country have come together to support the work of my British Asian Trust. The concept of philanthropy is central to all the world’s faiths and cultures.”

The chairman of the British Asian Trust is our old friend Manoj Badale, listed as the co-founding owner of the Rajasthan Royals.

 

Acid test: Mohammad Ali Jawad with Katie Piper

Saving Face

Definitely worth highlighting is the groundbreaking work of the British-Pakistani plastic surgeon Mohammad Ali Jawad, 53, whose work is featured in Saving Face, which won the Oscar for Documentary (Short Subject) last Sunday.

The award was dedicated to “all the women of Pakistan” by gifted Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who made the 40-minute documentary with Daniel Junge.

Jawad has been operating on women who have been acid victims, notably the British model and TV presenter Katie Piper whose face was badly disfigured in March, 2008, by ex-boyfriend Daniel Lynch.

After the Oscar, Jawad said: “They (women acid victims) are the real heroes here.”

Lynch and an accomplice Stefan Sylvestre are both serving life sentences — which suggests that the offence of throwing acid should be treated as attempted murder and automatically attract a mandatory life sentence.

 

Muddy waters

Is gay sex between consenting adults in India a criminal offence? Yes or no?

We had an answer as clear as mud when we tackled M. Veerappa Moily, then law minister, at an India House press conference in London in July, 2010.

This was after the Delhi court had apparently decriminalised gay sex in 2009 and struck down article 377 of the Indian Penal code but Moily kept insisting there had been no change in the law.

What he appeared to be saying was: “I can’t say the law has been changed because that would sound bad so although the law has de facto been changed I have to say it hasn’t been changed although it has been changed and I wish you would stop asking these stupid questions because there is no change on the legality of gay sex because obviously there is a change and nothing has changed. I hope that’s perfectly clear.”

This is a delicate area but the outside world applauded the decision of the Delhi court — which means India cannot now turn back the clock.

 

Tittle tattle

When a new Pope is elected, the occasion is signalled by a puff of smoke from the Vatican. Well, I am pleased to detect a symbolic puff of white smoke from India House — a new Indian high commissioner has just arrived.

He is Jaimini Bhagwati, who was India’s ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Why it took seven months to find a replacement for Nalin Surie who retired in August last year remains a mystery.

He will have his work cut out — the general feeling here is that that the Indian government has neglected its bilateral relations with the UK.