Swades

Swades

Directed by	Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced by	Ashutosh Gowariker
Written by	Ashutosh Gowariker M.G. Sathya
Starring	Shahrukh Khan Gayatri Joshi
Music by	A.R. Rehman
Cinematography	Mahesh Aney
Editing by	Ballu Saluja
Distributed by	Ashutosh Gowariker Productions Pvt. Ltd.
Release date(s)	December 17, 2004
Running time	197 mins
Country	India
Language	Hindi/English
Budget	Rs. 200,000,000 (~$5,000,000)^[1]
IMDb profile

Swades (Hindi: स्वदेश, Urdu: سودیس), literally Homeland, is a 2004 Indian film written, produced and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. The film stars Shahrukh Khan and film newcomer Gayatri Joshi. Music is by A. R. Rahman, lyrics by Javed Akhtar and costume design by Bhanu Athaiya. The tagline of the film is: "We, the people."

1 Plot summary
2 Inspiration
3 Production
4 Themes
5 Awards & Nominations
6 Soundtrack
7 Notes
8 External links

Plot summary

Mohan Bhargava, an NRI working at NASA, returns to India to bring Kaveri Amma, his ayah (nanny), to the US so she can spend her remaining life in comfort and luxury. In India, he finds her in a remote village called Charanpur where she now lives with a young woman named Geeta, who runs the local village school and was once Mohan's childhood friend.

During the next few days Mohan adapts himself to life in the village and befriends its inhabitants - an elderly ex-freedom figher who teaches history at the school, the village postmaster who wants to know about 'e-mails', and a cook who harbours ambitions of opening a dhaba in the US.

Kaveri Amma is undecided on going to live in the US. In any case, she cannot leave till Geeta is married and settled, which seems unlikely to happen soon. Geeta is busy trying to stop the local Panchayat from shifting the school, which suffers from low attendance, to smaller and far-away premises.

Mohan admires Geeta's determination and efforts for the school and decides to help out. This is difficult since the villagers are unconvinced of the benefits of education, and the problem is compounded by issues like discrimination and child marriage that are rampant in the village. Mohan argues against the villagers' mindsets and manages to change their perspective enough for them to start sending their children to school. The school retains its premises and is eventually expanded to include students irrespective of caste or gender.

Meanwhile, in spite of having many arguments with the headstrong Geeta over various other issues where they do not share similar opinions, Mohan starts developing a liking for her. He is visibly pleased when she turns down a marriage proposal (because the groom's family will not let her work after marriage). Geeta, however, resents Mohan having come back to India, though she seems to like him on a personal level. She believes he wants to take Kaveri Amma to the US to work for him and do his chores, though she later confesses that, having lost both her parents (like Mohan), she does not want to be left alone.

Kaveri Amma, who has made her decision, tries to find a way to get Mohan himself to stay in India. She sends him to another village to collect dues from Haridas, a farmer who had taken land on rent from Geeta. On the trip, Mohan is confronted by the extreme poverty that most people in India live in. Haridas, a former blacksmith, was left impoverished after the villagers refused to support him in his change of profession. He now has no money to feed his family, let alone pay rent. Mohan returns to Charanpur, deeply disturbed and decides to become more involved in the matters of the village.

The village lacks a continuous supply of electricity. The villagers are content in blaming the government, but Mohan attacks their apathy. He convinces them to take responsibility for their own problems and marshals a group of hundred men. Under his guidance, they build a small hydro-powerplant that uses water from a perennial spring on a nearby hill to generate electricity, thereby making the village self-sufficient.

Back at NASA, his ongoing project is entering its final stages and Mohan, being the project-manager, cannot afford to delay his return. Kaveri Amma is happy with friends and life in Charanpur and fears not being able to adapt to an alien culture. Geeta is unwilling to settle in the US as she wants to continue working in the village. She rejects Mohan's proposal of marriage and he returns alone.

At NASA, he takes over his project and proudly sees it to completion. Nevertheless, he cannot seem to forget his stay in India, and memories of his visit keep coming back to him. He believes he can use his knowledge to help improve the quality of life of people back in India and decides to return. He resigns from his job at NASA, and when his boss remarks that he could have gone places, Mohan replies that he is going places.

Inspiration

Swades is inspired by the story of Aravinda Pillalamarri and Ravi Kuchimanchi the NRI couple who returned to India and developed the pedal power generator to light remote, off-the-grid village schools.^[2]^[3]^[4] Ashutosh Gowariker is believed to have read Rajni Bakshi’s book ‘Bapu Kuti’, through which he got to know about Aravinda and Ravi, and the Bilgaon project.^[2] The idea of lighting a village appealed to him. After spending considerable time with Aravinda and Ravi, both dedicated Association for India’s Development (AID) volunteers, Gowarikar supposedly visited Bilgaon, an adivasi village in the Narmada valley, which is the back drop of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement. The people of Bilgaon are credited with doing 2000 person-days of ‘shramdaan’ to make their village energy self-sufficient. The Bilgaon project is recognized as a model for replication by the Government of Maharshtra.

Production

The role of Mohan was first offered to Hrithik Roshan who refused after reading the script.^[5] Swades was the first Indian film to be actually shot inside the NASA research center at the Launch Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Florida.^[6]^[7] To add to the authenticity of his film, Gowariker actually wanted to shoot the scene in the NASA space center rather than on a set. The rainfall monitoring satellite known as the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) in the film is an actual NASA mission and is currently scheduled to launch in 2013.^[8]^[9]

Themes

Mahatma Gandhi's great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi noted the theme of Gandhism in the film.^[10] The name of the main character portrayed by Shahrukh Khan is Mohan, which was also Mahatma Gandhi's birth name (Mohandas or "Mohan"). The film also opens with the following quotation from Gandhi:

“

Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress.

”

The film was alleged to be a remake of the Kannada film Chigurida Kanasu, directed by T.S.Nagabharana, which was based on a novel of the same name by Shivaram Karanth, a claim that was refuted by Swades writer M G Sathya who said that he had been working on the story much earlier. Also Swades was simultaneously released in Tamil with the title "Desam".^[11]