Bhaji on the Beach

Just because bhaji refers to fried Indian snacks doesn't mean Bhaji on the Beach, a charmingly accurate comedy (which ran in art houses in '94), doesn't serve up substance. Three generations of Indian women living in the same English town venture to a seaside resort for what their tour leader calls a ''female fun time'' and discover that the gaps in their cultural identities aren't as wide as they seem. By weaving together a series of conflicts — one woman suffers from the community's pressure to stay with her abusive husband, another hides her black Caribbean boyfriend from her family — director Gurinder Chadha has created a hilarious sister flick that all women (and men) can identify with and blasts restrictive Indian traditions and taboos at the same time. A