But with so many songs, such emotions and drama, Tandoori Love does come across as being in the same genre as the thousands churned out in Mumbai’s dream factory, with a few Swiss characters and situations thrown in.

Paulus chose the cast very carefully, subjecting even well-known actors to a screen test. Lavinia Wilson, a German actress, aspiring to make it big in Hollywood plays Sonja (pronounced Sonia). Vijay Raaz, whom we all know from numerous Hindi movies but remember most for his comic role in Monsoon Wedding, “is a marvellous actor,” according to Paulus. Shweta Agarwal (whom we know from TV serial Dekho Magar Pyaar Se) plays the tantrum throwing diva who, accompanied by her mom on shooting sets, is giving the director and the producer (played by Ganesh Yadav and Aasif Sheikh) constant jitters.

He says he did a lot of research for the film, saw hundreds of Hindi movies including A, B and C grade ones, studied the lives and work of cooks in India, met dozens of film personalities in order to write the story (actually co-write with Stefen Hillebrand) from two different points of view, bringing in the mutual prejudices that the two cultures have towards each other. Incidentally, the Indians are often referred to as “Tamils” an epithet that has a slightly pejorative connotation here in the aftermath of the Jaffna war that brought almost 25,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to this country. Over the years, these Tamils have actually endeared themselves to the native population with their hardworking, docile and clean ways. But they nevertheless remain consigned to the lowest rungs of Swiss society, as they perform mostly menial jobs. Whereas the Indian expatriates here, some of whom might be Tamils, constitute a highly skilled segment of the workforce.

... contd.