We the Swadesis

The last time I remember Shahrukh actually stepping into the shoes of a character and not letting his stammering and stuttering get in the way was more than a decade ago, in a certain film called Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. In KHKN he played a desultory teenager who had two things driving his life, one was his Music band and the second his love for the local belle, Anna. He was careless, forgetful and deceptive but a talented guy who was often given a rude awakening by his band leader in the film , one stocky and tall drummer who believed that actions spoke louder than words...
Fast forward to a decade later and the often lying, lovelorn teenager has morphed into a larger-than-life King Khan. Acting has taken a backseat and every movie is, instead, a showcase of his hamming skills... enter the stocky drummer again, this time with an Oscar nomination, a much serious persona and a directorial avatar which cuts the 'King' to fit the size of a diminutive Mohan Bhargava, our main protagonist of Swades.

Swades is about the transformation of a repetitive and boring SRK into a character that he plays on the celluloid. It's about an Indian who is faced with the classic dilemma of to-return-or-not-to-return. Swades tries to deal with an issue which is not uncommon with every Indian who is living abroad and wants to go back, but for the glamour and comfort of the foreign land. The pursuit of this subject in most simple and honest manner, remains it's biggest strength.
Compared to the bawdy skin flicks and hackneyed whodunits that Bollywood dishes out with aplomb, Swades is a breath of fresh air.

One of the biggest positives of the movie is it's earthiness. There're no ostentatious sets, no meaningless glorifications and no exaggerations. Swades makes you feel that it's all happening around you and does not try to create a false sense of the subject being larger than life. It does create an aura of vulnerability and that to me is it's winning point. I almost felt like reaching out and hugging Kaveriamma, jostling with the kids running behind the big caravan and taking a dip in the village pool.

In the true tradition of his earlier movie (read Lagaan and no other) Gowarikar does show the triumph of human spirit, only this time, like the movie, it's at a much lower scale. The music and lyrics too compliment the setting instead of being individual triumphs. All in all Swades is a director's movie but unlike some other famous favourite sons of bollywood, Gowarikar does not try to jump out in every frame and tell the user 'Watch me! Watch me!'. On the other hand he deftly stands behind his subject and like his character in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, let his actions speak more for him.

On an other note, there have been murmurs that the movie was 'preachy' and boringly lengthy. Barring a couple of instances, the movie tries not to offer a ready solution to the bevy of problems it showcases and the length is certainly true to the subject it attempts to handle.

Like all sincere efforts, this one has it's flaws too but we will stick with the old adage here, nobody's perfect!

P.S. Gayatri Joshi is as good an actress as she's beautiful, only she carries the elusiveness a bit too far.