Ashutosh Gowariker Interview

Ashutosh Gowariker sprang a bolt from the blue with Lagaan at a time when he was almost given up for lost. And suddenly he seemed to have become media’s blue-eyed boy as the film went in for the Academy Awards. Today the Lagaan glory may have become a bygone chapter but it has ostensibly set parameters, which he has to match up to. That, for him, is probably a bigger challenge than taking Lagaan to the Oscars.

Naturally the director is both excited and nervous as the music of his forthcoming Shah Rukh Khan-Gayatri Joshi starrer Swades has just released and the film readies to see the light of the day by year-end.

The triumph of Lagaan has set a benchmark for you… any film that you make will have to meet exceedingly lofty hopes. Does that make you nervous?
I don’t want people to set Lagaan as the parameter for Swades. I made Lagaan; it went to the Oscars, great. This is a new project, where I am trying to put forth something different. I know expectations this time are much higher. But Lagaan could reach where it did because of the audience response. Of course, I am very excited about Swades, the way I was during Lagaan. I am a little nervous too because a lot of effort has gone in, but that went in during Lagaan too.

Expectations apart, one sees traces of Lagaan in Swades. The temple songs, the village backdrop…
Please don’t draw parallels with Lagaan on the basis of the rustic set-up. Both the films border around nationalism, because the premise is close to my heart. But as you know, Lagaan was set in the pre-British period, while Swades is a modern-day film. And the rural setting subsists because it is a part of India today. I don’t want to talk more about it but once you watch the film, you will apprehend the variation.

The music of Lagaan was a strong point. We see the team of Javed Akhtar and AR Rahman being repeated…
If given a chance, I will keep repeating the music team in every film I make. They understand the kind of emotions I am trying to explore or the message I am trying to send across. Maestros that they are, I see a continuity of the emotions in my script in their songs. And of course people have always enjoyed their music.

One felt you would repeat Aamir Khan too…
I would have enjoyed working with him again. But he didn’t fit into the character I had in mind. Of course, it is true that Shah Rukh was not my first choice. I had some other actor in mind, when I wrote the script. But that didn’t seem to work out and Shah Rukh stepped in.

Looks like Swades is trying to explore patriotism in the contemporary context. Heard Shah Rukh Khan plays an engineer flying to the States and returns to his village… what’s the deal like?
There are lots of issues that face our people. But no one takes an initiative to resolve them. All of us wait for the other person to do it, but nobody becomes the person. In Swades, Shah Rukh plays that other person, who tries doing his bit to help out people of his village. Then, things like his profession in the film just substantiate the plot.

You are the first Indian filmmaker to have shot at NASA. How difficult was it convincing the concerned authorities and what was the experience like?
Surprisingly, convincing the people at NASA was not difficult at all. I sent them a copy of my script, after reading which, they immediately agreed. In fact, the people in the background are all NASA scientists in the scene concerned. And all of them were very co-operative. We’ve even captured a satellite launcher, which the scientists are actually working on right now. It was a fabulous experience. Guess, my luck just worked and I got a chance to actually go and shoot there.

You’ve cast a newcomer to play the female lead yet again. Has it been consciously done to attach more importance to the male protagonist?
No… nothing of that sort was planned. It’s a sheer co-incidence that Lagaan was Gracy Singh’s debut and this one is Gayatri Joshi’s. The story of Swades demanded that I cast an innocent non-glamorous face. The character is that of a woman brought up in the city, who sacrifices her urban comfort to do her bit for the upliftment of villages. She ends up teaching kids in a small school. Naturally I didn’t want an established actress, whose image would have affected the character.

By Qamar Zaman