Revisiting Tanuja Chandra’s underrated Hope & A Little Sugar

Tanuja Chandra made the delicate, sensitive but little-seen film about a Sikh family in the US after 9/11 called Hope & A Little Sugar. It released in India on April 18, 2008 and this film carried a message of hope. The underrated film features Anupam Kher as a Sikh father and Mahima Chaudhary as his daughter, together the two are coping with the trauma of losing a dear one.
Tanuja said the idea for the film came from the thought that something that happens thousands of miles away can come from the same emotions that we in India have experienced and even after such deep-rooted hatred, forgiveness is possible.That human beings do have the capacity to love one another. The subject of 9/11 is a deeply complex issue and movies necessarily need to take sides in order to be effective. That makes this a difficult subject to tackle. More than being formulistic, stories about 9/11 have over the years caused a kind of emotional fatigue in people, because its images are among the most visible in recent history. The only way to touch upon the issue in any significant manner is to make movies with some complexity and that doesn’t always work with audiences.
Tanuja had said in an interview conducted at the time of release, that she felt good making the film since it was her first English language film. She was excited to have made a film that addresses itself to the anguish of an Indian family in the US dealing with the situation after 9/11.
Tanuja was happy to have made a film outside her linguistic domain. She had said that Hope & A Little Sugar was special because it took her beyond the space she was used to. It was liberating for Tanuna to make an English-language film. She felt no pressure of commercial constraints at all. Rather, she felt far more relaxed without having to bother about the box-office. It was a relief to work with professionals and it was a welcome change. Everything from production to marketing to release was handled with utmost briskness. She had furthee stated, "No hankypanky, no goof ups. Their way of functioning is so different from our 'chalta hai' attitude to filmmaking. Out here, you have to fight every step of the way. With 'Hope & A Little Sugar', I just had to focus on making the film. Everything else was taken care of."
The film was described by Tanuja as "crossover in every sense". Speaking about the cast she had revealed, "The cast was a delight. We could finish the film in record time only because the actors valued time and money. To me it was very exciting to do a film that addresses itself to an audience that's American and Indian. We went from Mumbai to the US, made the film for American producers. It's a Muslim-Sikh love story.“