Mistress Of Spices fate shouldered on Aish

Aishwarya Rai is no doubt is the queen of beauty but this time she is Gurinder Chaddha’s Mistress Of Spices. After gaining international fame for her part in ‘Bride and Prejudice’ Aish is once again the central character in this romantic movie spiced with a bit of magic.The movie is adaptation of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s famous novel by the same title, directed by the debutant Paul Mayeda Berges and produced by Deepak Nayar and Gurinder Chadha. Here, Gurinder Chadha has used spices to excite the senses and heal the spirit.

Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott, Nitin Ganatra, Anupam Kher, Sonny Gill Dulay, Padma Lakshmi

Story: Tilo (Aishwarya Rai) is the mistress of a scented shop of spices and herbs situated in California where she works her magical powers. She draws on ancient wisdom to make remedies from fenugreek, lotus root, chillies, cinnamon roots, plants and powders from all over the world to cure heartache, banish bad luck and rescue from evil in one’s personal life.

Tilo’s little shop is constantly visited by some of the residents in the neighborhood. Her client list includes Haroun (Nitin Ganatra) - the taxi driver with a dark cloud over his future; Geeta (Padma Lakshmi) - the woman in love with a forbidden man and Jagjit (Sonny Gill Dulay) - the adolescent drifting from his family into a life full of corruption. Beautiful Tilo has a remedy for everyone, as long as she abides by the rules of her craft.

She can only use her powers for others and not herself. She is never to leave the spice shop and never to touch the skin of her clients or for matter of fact any human being. All this seems simple, until she meets an American man (Dylan McDermott) who tempts her far beyond her boundaries.

Can it be love? Will she be lured by the power of love so much that she will loose her magic?

The Mistress Of Spices is all set to release simultaneously in UK and India on April 21. The distributors of the film are counting on Aishwarya’s fame, beauty and acting skills to fetch an excellent response in the Indian as well as overseas market. In India the film will have a limited release of 70 odd prints with the main focus being on the multiplex audiences in the metros.

According to its Indian distributors, the audiences here will be able to connect to the film instantly, thanks to Aishwarya’s presence and the Indianness of the film where the story begins with India as the backdrop to moves over to San Francisco. The film also has shades of magic, besides a background song by Bally Sagoo.