Aparita

Pink Ludoos references the practice of new parents celebrating by offering family, friends and neighbours their thanks soaked in ghee and sugar. Only laddus are usually a warm golden colour (when made traditionally) or a flashy orange colour (when brought from ye local grocery store).

So, what’s with the pink colour?

Well, Pink Ludoos is a movie written by Belle Mott and directed by Gaurav Seth set to release soon. It makes perfect sense when you’re told the story has to do with a feisty young Sikh girl Gugan who gets pregnant with triplet girls outside wedlock. Starring Jay Kazim (notice that bespectacled receptionist in the Diet Coke ad where an interviewee takes off her laddered stockings?), Shaheen Khan (the adorable mum from Bend It Like Beckham whose takiya kalaam was ‘Khasma nu khani’) and Jazz Mann (who’da thunk the comic could do some drama), Pink Ludoos is about Gugan’s tussle with tradition as she decides to keep her babies rather than aborting them, as is norm in her community.

Pink Ludoos is Mott’s debut screenplay. An Indo-Canadian substitute teacher from Delta, Mott wanted to write a story about the gender bias she’s seen first-hand in the community in Vancouver.

In fact, when Seth first read the script, he found it mind-boggling.

“But Belle introduced me to three of her friends who had their girl-child aborted,” says Seth. “And these were the women who were willing to talk about it, who have regrets. There are others who don’t even talk about it.”

Like his previous movie A Passage to Ottawa, which has won a bunch of awards including Best Film at Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children, Pink Ludoos was a result of serendipity. Seth had been working on a psychological thriller and was looking to shop it around.

“After A Passage to Ottawa, which was a very sweet, simple movie, I wanted to do something completely different,” laughs Seth. “So I wrote a screenplay (that’s) sort of like Memento meets Sixth Sense. My agent told me I should contact production houses myself. It makes it more personal.

“So I went alphabetically and the first call was Brightlight Pictures. Within two hours, I had a call back. They said they would look at my screenplay, but they also had a screenplay for me. Apparently they had been trying to get in touch with me.”

It makes sense because Mumbai-born Seth is something of a rising star in the Canadian film scene. Seth had wanted to be a storyteller since he was a kid. By the time he left for Russia to study filmmaking, 18-year-old Seth had written his first screenplay.

“It was probably horrible,” laughs Seth, now in his late 30’s.

It was the five year filmmaking course – covering a bachelor’s and master’s degree – that clinched Seth’s decision to forsake Bollywood in favour of the former U.S.S.R. And he went to the Moscow Film School, now known as the All Russian State Institute for Cinematography, on scholarship, which meant it was all free.

“This was a program that began in the 70’s where the former Soviet Union got students from third-world countries with a very specific aim,” says Seth. “They had a program to fill the students with Marxist, Leninist ideas and then sent them back to their own countries to start a revolution.”

For Seth, the revolution began at home. He first had to find the courage to tell his parents of his filmmaking aspirations. When he did tell them, he found support from unexpected quarters.
“I was closer to my mother than my father, but on this subject I got more support from my dad,” laughs Seth. “Maybe it’s because my dad fancied being an actor in his younger days. He even did some plays and theatre but had to give it up when he settled down.”

Even when he managed to convince them, Seth’s parents were perplexed by his decision to study in Russia.

“We’re not a film industry family, but even then the only thing my parents understood was that films meant Bombay,” says Seth. “People came from all over India to work in the biggest film industry, and I had no interest in staying there. At one point, my dad was keen on setting me up in Bombay after my studies.

The experience in Russia was amazing. Seth studied at the world’s oldest film school – the Moscow Film School was established in 1919 – where masters such as Sergei Eisenstein (Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Ivan the Terrible) had taught. Every morning, at 9:00 a.m. students were shown Russian and world cinema classics.

“Sometimes it was hard to attend those screenings, after partying till 3:00 a.m.” laughs Seth. “I missed some great films, and regret that now. The technical aspect of filmmaking can be taught in a few months. But the aesthetics, that’s harder to learn.”

But Seth was obviously paying attention. His films are a world apart from the current slush-pile of diasporic Indian films, both in subject and in treatment.

Although there are some stilted performances from fresh faces such as Chenier Hundal (but he’s quite yummy) as Kazim’s love-interest, Pink Ludoos is a well-handled, touching story.

There’s no gratuitous UK Bhangra soundtrack accompanying various shots, and the movie really does everyone a favour by peeking inside South Asian society’s skeletons in the closet.

Khan shines as the superstitious Sikh mum (hope she’s not typecast in that role) and the rest of the newbie cast does a decent job. Naturally, the quality of Pink Ludoos is much better than the slew of software-engineer-discovering-art-and-love movies that cast everyone from the neighbourhood aunty to the caterer’s brother’s wife’s niece.

Hopefully Pink Ludoos will be out in a theatre near you soon. Seth sees no reason why not. At a recent screening in a Whistler film festival, many white audience members shed a tear or two.

“In telling the story, I had to find the balance. I didn’t want to make it too depressing. But I didn’t want the humour of the film to lessen its potency. And I think we’ve achieved that,” says Seth.

Hoping for spring release, Seth says Canadian audiences are ready for movies such as Pink Ludoos.

“Movies like Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham have proved that these are not just niche market or ethnic market movies,” he says. “Maybe we won’t have the box-office returns like those movies but at least the doors are now open.”

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