Bending it like Gurinder

I adore Gurinder Chaddha so much I could kiss her! She has made a completely satisfying and moving film; one that is filled in with as much ...

I adore Gurinder Chaddha so much I could kiss her! She has made a completely satisfying and moving film; one that is filled in with as much intelligence as foolishness, as much affection as satire; one that talks about serious issues with as much honesty as with laughter, that at the end of the movie it made me just whole-heartedly applaud her courage and her contribution to our entertainment lives. Bend it like Beckham is a total delight, while also a film of such vision that its surprising that Gurinder Chaddha is not as much of an icon as she deserves to be.

Actually, it8217;s not so surprising. While the fact that she brings an immediate smile to one8217;s face does not mean she shouldn8217;t be respected as one of the significant filmmakers of our time; she most certainly should be. But the fact, is she8217;s not. And it8217;s not surprising because there is a social ailment we all suffer from and have always suffered from 8212; the one of taking ourselves and our lives too seriously. Not just in India, but all over the world, those tormented souls who have looked upon life as a dark, grim, heart-breaking affair and have written novels or made movies as if they were shrines of sorrow and their characters chapels of despair, have always been regarded with awe and reverence.

The ones that make you laugh have rarely been thought of as 8216;artists8217;, but have been seen as mostly clowns. With the exception of Chaplin, comedy has rarely shared the rarefied platform of art. With drama or tragedy, laughter has never worn the halo that crowns movies that have the heavyweight emotions of anguish and sorrow, of thunder and storm. While someone like Johnny Lever may make many cutting statements in his stage shows, what some 8216;socio-politico-historio8217; type writer might say will be often considered more accurate and meaningful about our living conditions today.

I think this is plain unfair. While I clearly understand that something funny doesn8217;t make the world and our hearts less sad, I also think that comic writers and filmmakers must be given their due because it takes just as much talent to create laughter as it does to invoke tears. Mark Twain went further to say that 8216;8216;the secret source of humour itself is not joy but sorrow8217;8217;, which makes me conclude that for tragedy one needs only tears but for comedy one needs both laughter and tears.

Not only that 8212; recent findings in medicine have revealed that laughter is clinically good for health. While obviously giving relief, it also activates the immune system of the body, charging up T lymphocytes and increasing antibodies which fight upper respiratory tract infections; it increases Natural Killer Cell activity which kills virally infected and tumour cells, and increases immunoglobulin, which helps antibodies to pierce dysfunctional or infected cells. Moreover, laughter decreases the levels of 8216;8216;stress8217;8217; hormones like epinephrine and dopamine in the body, high levels of which lead to constricted blood vessels and elevated blood pressure. There wouldn8217;t be better news for comics 8212; that scientific data is actually beginning to support what they have intuitively believed for centuries.

If laughter has such great therapeutic power, its status in the eyes of those that create trends as well as those that pinpoint trends must be raised. Jim Carrey must be taken as seriously as Tom Hanks. Mehmood8217;s work must be spoken of in the same hushed tones as Dilip Kumar8217;s. More awards to comic filmmakers, more retrospectives of comic legacies. And as Bend it like Beckham plays its end credits, all of us 8216;oh-so-serious8217; directors of dramas, of epics, of classics the unit of Devdas included must give a generous ovation to Gurinder Chaddha and thereafter proceed to smother her with kisses for bringing us such joy.

The writer is a well-known filmmaker