Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera...

This weekend I got a chance to see “Swades”, the much awaited movie from Ashutosh Gowarikar, especially from folks like most of us in the group who have been outside India for a long time now. But I must add there was an added attraction at the end of our movie this weekend… A Live Chat on the phone with Ashutosh Govarikar himself!

I don’t remember many movies where I have gone in the theatre without any biases… and my overall movie experience has always tilted one way or the other depending on them. So, on the outset let me lay down the ones those I carried for this “program”

1. Sharukh Khan gives me a headache! (I am sorry… but that is my blunt opinion about him…)
2. Ashutosh will make a good movie again (I know few of us in the group didn’t like Lagaan much… but I loved it, despite (or because of…?) its melodrama)
3. It is going to be a slow movie (thanks to the reviews I read at multiple places)
4. The movie will not end on a simplistic solution (like many Hindi movies end up giving…! I can’t exactly give you any particular reason, why I believed so)
5. Ashutosh Govarikar for all his reputation and ‘struggling’ background, will just show up at the telephonic chat and give typical Bollywoodish meaningless answers… (the ever popular “…our movie is different… you see…”)

I obviously don’t want to spoil the fun for those who haven’t seen the movie yet and would refrain from making any comments that would disclose any contents. But still I would like to give you an account of how I met with these biases at the end of the movie.

1. Sharukh Khan: to my disbelief, he was definitely tolerable. He had his ‘k…k…k…irritating moments’ e.g. the bathing scene…, but mostly was kept very subdued by the director. And credit must also be given to SRK for not only accepting something that would be against his image… (Whatever that is) but that he acted out few parts convincingly well. To name a few, the scene where he visits a village to collect the rent… oops I am slipping on the content! (I still would have loved to see Aamir in the role! :o)

2. Slowness of the movie: For a Hindi movie, it is definitely slow. But I am glad it is so… the director has not tampered with the flow and the progression of the story (which that way is pretty simple if you see) just for the sake of getting into the fast lane…! Anyways, if few of us in our group could enjoy “All the President’s Men..” this was a 100 mts sprint compared to that. I personally, never had a problem with the slowness of the movie if the script and the treatment demand it to be that way.

3. Lagaan Burden: I think he has lived up to the expectations he raised with “Lagaan”. To be honest enough, “Lagaan” itself was a revelation for me, as I didn’t like his earlier movies like “Baazi” and “Pehla Nasha”. Don’t faint… I haven’t seen these movies in the theatre… but on some movie channels. In fact I liked this better than “Lagaan” only for the fact that if I enjoyed Lagaan as a good clean fiction (melo)drama, I liked this to be a movie that deals with the hard faced reality for most of us (at least in this group), who have the option of settling abroad.

4. Ashutosh’s telephonic conversation: I must say that this effort of trying to have a dialogue with the audience after the movie has been pretty unique; at least for me. I have had discussions off stage on almost all the plays I have seen with its cast/directors, but movie is an altogether different medium. I must admire Ashutosh for his efforts and also our friend in the town Nachiket Sardesai (who is Ashutosh’s cousin) for making it possible.
But against my bias (yet again) Ashutosh was very down to earth and reasonable in his answers and responses, that I couldn’t help wondering how this was possible. After all we were talking to a person who is not only famous but belongs to the cadre of the glamorous, (and hence) arrogant world of Hindi cinema. But his sincerity in the whole effort was outstanding. Bear in mind he was answering us at 5:00 AM in his morning!!! He answered each and every question with all the honesty and dignity.

5. Simplistic solution: I thought this is where I was a little disappointed since my bias came true to an extent. Although he has tried to show that THE decision is not so simple for a person to make, I felt it was a little filmy at the end. (Am I slipping on the content again…?). But, having said that, if I were in his shoes, I can’t think of many other ways how I would have shown it without digressing too much from the central story. Since the whole discussion of returning back or not itself stands on a very emotional background, it would be hard to have a rational answer to it anyhow.

6. Cast selection: Another point where he scored (and did well even in Lagaan) I felt was his cast selection. The new Heroin Gayatri steals the show…! I forgot to mention this bias of mine… ;o) I just loved her appearance in ads I had seen earlier. But she didn’t disappoint me and does a lot more than just looking serene. But the shot in the arm for the movie were KaveriAmma, Mela Ram and Munishwar. So real and thus convincing… but I won’t reveal much as promised earlier…

It is to be seen now, how this movie is taken by the masses back in our country and the NRIs who are obvious targets for the movie. But I was very much impressed by the clashes he had shown in the movie without making them too loud. Especially the one where SRK argues with the villagers for looking beyond the age old argument of “we are the greatest country in the world because of our Sanskar aur Parampara”… (I almost felt like the script was stolen from our communication in this group… ;o) and the one where he can’t keep his disappointment to himself for the Indian attitude of “… jo ho raha hai woh thik hai…” and many others… the end as Ashutosh said in the interview is quite metaphorical in many senses… not something the usual Hindi movie-goer is used to…

As usual, I wish we get such thought provoking movies from the main-stream, beyond just the Benegals and Nihlanis… unfortunately these talented people have already earned a reputation from the masses that they would not enjoy much … I am glad Ashutosh has used his reputation and goodwill that he got from Lagaan to deliver some thoughts to the masses than just raw senseless melodramas or brainless violent gundaraj… which I am really sick of.

Kudos Ashutosh…!

And if you have managed to read up to this point… thank you for being patient in this long rambling… ;o)