Vikram Chatwal is first to admit that One Dollar Curry is not the greatest film you’ll see. Nevertheless, his debut acting gig seems to have launched him into the big, bad world of Bollywood. And that’s what it’s all about.

“It’s all about the process,” Chatwal said. Filmi director Dinesh Sachdev had asked Chatwal about working on the movie, and Chatwal answered in a roundabout, stream of consciousness fashion. Sachdev was leading the Q&A with Chatwal after the screening of One Dollar Curry at the Royal Ontario Museum. The movie was the closing night film of the sixth annual film festival showcasing films from South Asia and the South Asian diaspora.

“It was the worst experience and the best experience in my life,” explained Chatwal. “I have never been in a situation where one day I said, ‘Either I will kill myself or kill the director.’ Or I really found myself, and this was the most profound experience in my life. And that’s what I think I learnt from Vijay. No matter how hard you strive, no matter what you think is doomed, no matter what you think you did wrong … you just keep yearning and yearning, until you get that magic moment. And what you saw on the screen were a lot of days of torturous work to get one magic moment. And they [the magic moments] weren’t that many.

“It’s really a labour of love. I really don’t care how One Dollar Curry does. It bombed in Bombay. It did well in New Delhi and then crashed and burned. It’s now opening up in Berlin. I really couldn’t care how well this movie does. But just the fact that I went through this experience, and once you go through this experience, you find out you don’t care what the end result is.”

Most people would know Chatwal in his other avatars of hotelier and the model with an eye for the ladies. He’s the main man behind boutique hotels such as Time and Dream in New York, although he did get some start-up help from hotelier papa Sant Chatwal. (Chatwal Sr. is the president of Hampshire Hotels and Resorts.) In the days of Chatwal’s misspent youth, when he was known as the Turbaned Cowboy, he dated model Gisele Bundchen and tattooed a G on his body. He’s later reported to have said that the G stands for ‘guru.’ It may sound a little hinky. But then again Chatwal does have a rather elaborate tattoo of Guru Gobind Singh ji on his arm, and is proud of his Sikh heritage.

Chatwal formed a company along with Gotham Chopra (does the man realize he spells his name like Batman’s hometown), which has been referred to as 5K Films, 5K Entertainment and 5K Productions alternatively.

The name was based of the five tenets of Sikhism, and the company worked on the largely forgettable film The Bulletproof Monk starring Chow-Yun Fat. 5K Productions also helped out with One Dollar Curry, though in the much later post-production stages.

One Dollar Curry is something of a crazy bildungsroman-ish movie about a young Sikh man. Chatwal plays the Sikh man Nishan who somehow lands up in Paris. The idea is that Nishan wanted to marry Hindu girl Yamini (kathak dancer Smriti Mishra) but his family was against the match. (Why that would result in Nishan’s trip to Paris isn’t really clear, but one could humour the plot as being part of an insane narrative.) Nishan is in Paris, doesn’t have proper papers and applies for a political refugee status.

After one attempt to sell dal out of a bucket and bizarre scene involving a nude woman on a massage table, loads of oil and egg yolks, Nishan sets up the titular One Dollar Curry stand with the help of the cabbie Fixer. Nishan doesn’t know how to cook curry, but who cares. After all, unlike the British pukka sahibs, the Parisians probably don’t know their korma from their kachumber. Nishan is helped along in this charade by French journalist Nathalie and grows close to her. Suddenly Yasmin arrives from India. Various love triangles ensue. And more curry powder flies around the screen.

The film was partially based on the director Vijay Singh’s life. And Chatwal got the gig through his cousin Bishen Singh Bedi. Yah, the cricketing legend. Apparently Singh and Bedi know each other, and Bedi loved Singh’s first film Jaya Ganga. When Singh asked Bedi if he knew a Sikh guy who could act in his next movie, Bedi contacted Chatwal.

“I met Vijay in his very humble Parisian flat,” said Chatwal. “It was a very surreal first experience because he was talking about dying, and he was talking about death and dark humour. And I was like, I thought you wanted to make a comedic commercial film.

“He’s a really tortured artist. And he sits there in his room, and he writes and he writes, and he just tortures himself. It was grueling shooting with this man who was so tortured, who was belligerent, who was an egomaniac. The character that you saw in the film, that was him.”

Throughout the Q&A with Sachdev, Chatwal maintained an approachable demeanour. No question was too little for him, and he was generous with his time. His recognition of the limitations of the movie earned him appreciation from the audience, and Chatwal was in turn appreciative of the festival and the talent nurtured at the festival.

After the Q&A, Chatwal spared a few minutes to chat with MyBindi.com as he made his way to the after party at the downtown Toronto Mantra club.

His honesty about the potential of the film as he introduced One Dollar Curry was a result of his objectivity, and the fact that he knew that the movie was going to be compared with crossover films such as Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham, said Chatwal.

“That’s why I kind of brought the expectations down,” he said.
But there should be high expectations for his next two film ventures.

In Ek Ajnabee, Chatwal will be starring opposite Amitabh Bachchan in a full out Bollywood film. The other film is of the crossover variety. It’s called Hope and a Little Sugar and he plays Anupam Kher’s son, who dies in the 9/11 attacks.
Ek Ajnabee is loosely based on Man Under Fire, said Chatwal.
“I play Marc Anthony’s role in the movie,” he said. “It was a great experience. Amitabh plays Denzel’s role. In Hope and a Little Sugar, I play Anupam’s stockbroker son, who gets killed in the 9/11 crashes. The movie is about what happens to the family after their son gets killed. Anupam Kher plays a turbaned Sikh in the movie.”

The movie career may seem like a far cry from his hotelier days. Then again, Chatwal had gotten into the hotel business to escape his father’s dictate to get hitched or get into the business. Now that he’s an established celebrity-entrepreneur, he’s recently gotten affianced – and his fiancé Pria Sachdev is also an aspiring starlet – it seems as if Chatwal has leisure to pursue his real dreams.

“The hotels are on a hold right now,” he laughed. “Acting is my passion, and that’s what I am doing right now. I don’t have anything else coming up right away, but as soon I have something, I will let you know.”