Paul Mayeda Berges, better known as Gurinder Chaddha's better-half speaks exclusively to Subhash K Jha on his first film The Mistress Of Spices which opens this month...

Q: Mistres Of Spices is a very Indian story. How Indian are you?
A: I very much feel like the citizen of the world. I'm very close to Gurinder and her family. So part of me feels Punjabi. The world is such a small place. I feel as Japanese as I feel Indian. That multi-culturalism comes across in all our films.

Mistress Of Spices is set almost entirely in San Francisco. That's a city where I've spent a lot of my years. For Gurinder and I embracing a multiplicity of cultures is very natural. I don't get alarmed by it, only excited.

Q: You must've butterflies in your stomach?
A: I really am excited! We're premiering Mistress .... at the Toronto film festival in September. I had loads of fun making it. Even though Mistress Of Spices is a difficult subject I never felt the burden because I worked with people, like my wife, whom I've been working with for so many years. You must remember Gurinder and I wrote many of her films together.

Q: Did your writing collaboration with Gurinder train you for direction ?
A: Oh absolutely! I learnt a lot during all the film that we wrote for her. I always used to be supervising the second unit of Gurinder's films. That was such an education. I don't feel I made Mistress ... separate from her. We wrote the script together. We both read the book nine years ago and fell in love with it. It's a very sensuous tale.

Q: Have you made the film in close collaboration with the author Chitra Devakaruni?
A: Oh yes! She's a wonderful writer. We wrote the first part of the script in her house in San Francisco bay. Our film is vey faithful to the novel. Obviously you have to condense things. But since liked the novel so much, we tried to stick very close to it.

Q: Was Aishwarya your first choice?
A: I'm not just saying this....But she has done a tremendous job. When we were making Bride & Prejudice with her we enjoyed working with her so much that we began wondering how she'd look playing Tilo.

At first I was skeptical. But when she read the part I was amazed at how she responded. To her credit, from Day-1 she had a strong sense of who Tilo is. She jumped right into the character and embraced it. I think she shows a very different side to her talent and beauty in Mistress Of Spices. I'm very proud of her.

Q: Do you think your film, and Jagmohan Mundra's Provoked, will get her recognition abroad beyond Bride & Prejudice?
A: I think she's growing all the time. She has lots of sides to her. With every character she's showing new colours. With Bride & Prejudice she got recognized in countries where Hindi cinema isn't seen so much.

But because the langauge of Bride... tried to combine the Bollywood musical with international style, it was partially a Bollywood experience. What Mistress... should do is to introduce Aishwarya to an even wider audience. This is a very universal, magical story.

Q: How have you put the novel's enigma on screen?
A: We've tried to retain the magic surrealism. Our cinematographer Santosh Sivan is an absolute magician. We had a lot of fun planning the look and feel for the film. We wanted the flavours of the spices to leap off the screen. I desisted from putting in lots of special effects.

That would only distract from the film. Santosh helped me to make the film magical without resorting to gimmicks. To bring Tilo's world of spices alive we had to work on the magic without losing out on realism.

Q: What next?
A: I'm too taken up with Mistress ... to think about anything. I just want to bring this one out and then decide. But yes, Gurinder and I may work separately too. She's working on some projects in LA on her own. I think that's great. We do have a strong connection when we write together. And we'll always do that as well.

Q: Some cynics would say she ghost-directed Mistress Of Spices?
A: I'm not worried about that. We always work so closely together. We wrote Mistress... together and she's the film's producer. Her energy level is always a big help on the sets. She's warm and alive. I'd never try to underplay the fact I've learnt a great deal from Gurinder and that I respect her tremendously as a director.

You never know where the contribution of one crew-member ends, and the other's begins. I love working with Santosh, Ash and Gurinder. The last film we made had a big impact.

Q: How do you think diehard Bollywood addicts would react to Mistress Of Spices?
A: They'd love it, though it doesn't have songs. These days a lot of song-less films are being made in India. I'm dying to see Black. I'm also excited about seeing The Rising. The more genres there are, the healthier it is for the entire industry.