I guess to get an amazing shot you need people to forget you are there and then just keep rolling the camera. This comes easily to Gurinder Chadha, while she’s bowling people over with her unlimited Punjabi enthusiasm. Hubby Paul, meanwhile, collaborates with her on the screenplays of their films. They have recently had fraternal twins, Ronak Singh Chadha Berges (named after Gurinder’s dad, meaning exuberance, life and soul, laughter) and Kumiko Kaur Chadha Berges (named after Paul’s mum, meaning everlasting beauty in Japanese). They have also completed making their new film, Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging. This much-hyped British comedy revolves around a 14-year-old girl, who keeps a hilarious journal describing her soaring moods and bottomless anguish and includes all the things she learns about kissing, which engulfs her life. Along with their mum and dad, the twins will be seen for the first time in cameo roles in this film.
For her innovative contribution to the British film industry, Chadha was awarded an OBE, in the Queen’s Birthday honours list in 2006. We met at Soho Square in London for the first ever photo shots of their babies and then proceeded to Patara Thai restaurant in Greek Street, for a bite and a chat about their new endeavours.

On new motherhood
We waited so long to have children and our lawyer in LA summed it up beautifully: having children, he said, is like growing an extra heart and falling in love again. It may sound cliched but that’s exactly how I feel. Even if they have kept me up at night and sometimes I have had less than three hours of sleep, in the morning when I go into their room when they are just waking up and they give me a beautiful smile, it just lights up my world. I used to meditate in the evenings but now I am busy with both the babies, feeding them around that time, and often find myself mulling over the day with these beautiful little beings in my arms. They have helped us relax and taken a lot of the stress away and added magic to our lives.

On raising multicultural children in Britain today
I think the challenge is that our children should have a strong identity — an individual identity. And, that does not mean they have to turn out exactly like us but that they should have a cultural appreciation of their heritage and background. At the same time, it’s important for us as parents to acknowledge that they will be forging a new identity of their own. I think it’s important for children to understand what it is that has shaped their parents, as they will always carry a residue of that with them. They should be enriched by it and turn it around into something that makes sense to them. I don’t believe in this whole concept of culture clash, whether you are too western or too Indian. People are much more westernised in India than they are here in England and vice versa. Being Indian or of Indian origin can mean so many different things today.

On her new film, Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging
We had been approached by Paramount Studios to come on board as they were having problems turning this book into a film. Paul and I read it and I could immediately see its potential as it’s about being a teenager and growing up in England. We wrote it very quickly and the script has turned out to be fantastic. I was not originally meant to direct it, as I was going to be making the film, Dallas. But then I became pregnant and Dallas looked like it was not going to see the light of day. It was all getting complicated. Paramount then suggested that they were happy to work around my pregnancy. It was like a dream job for any woman. So I did my preproduction work and took a few months off for maternity leave and then came back and shot the film and now I am editing it. It is going to be released in July. We work just off the road from our apartment in Soho and I go home for lunch to be with my babies. I am always there for their bath time and bedtime in the evenings. Paul and I have changed the book slightly while adapting it into a script and have added an Indian girl as one of the characters. We wanted to give the film a contemporary feel and add a global touch to it. The new actress who is being launched in this film comes from Derby and is called Manjeevan Grewal.

On the effect of Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging
Even though this film is about young girls and the boys they fall in love with and their parents’ reactions to it all, the beauty is that no matter who you are, when watching it, it transports you back to your teenage years. You can sit there just remembering what it was like when you were 15 and how you pined for certain boys, stayed tongue-tied in front of others, how boys related to you and how obnoxious you were with your parents. And how, all of a sudden, your mood would quickly change when you were with your own friends. It’s about a group of young girls and their journey of self-discovery. It’s a classic teenage high school romantic movie.

On the character based on her own childhood experiences
In this film, I think it’s there in a combination of the characters in the girls; when I was that age I used to speak like one of them and say things like she does. There is an innocence about that age; you think you are an adult and try and behave like one but every moment a vulnerable little child surfaces. They want to be women but they are not there yet. So in many ways this film crystalises the pressures young girls face to be all grown up when they are not ready yet.