This Independence Day, I am thinking of Swades. Released in 2004 – the year India was celebrating its 54th Independence day. Directed by a filmmaker who took India to the Oscars. His Lagaan was about the struggle for survival and dignity against our colonizers. Swades can very well be its sequel, of the times when we have done and dusted with throwing them out.
The movie was not a box office hit, and yet is almost everybody’s favorite. I am thinking of it today because I am tired of all those chest thumping, jingoistic, hyper masculine, so-called patriotic movies they make these days. The ones with dangerously distorted histories and one sided facts. The ones which glorify certain communities, only for the sake of vilifying another. Ones which intend to invoke pride, without responsibility.
Swades is different. There is almost a Gandhian-like simplicity to the film – like the handwoven Khadi – coarse yet comfortable, desi. When the country is increasingly vying for urban capitalism as a mark of development, Swades promptly takes you back to the villages. Sustainable development is practiced before Make in India becomes a catchphrase. Swades does not offer any comfort to Indians living abroad to demonstrate their token nationalism and feel good. In fact, the message (directed to the Indians thirsty to jump overseas and never return) is just the opposite – if you love your country, it makes sense to come back and render your services here. Like other things Gandhian, it pricks conscience without any violence.
The village where NASA project manager Mohan Bhargav’s Kaveri Amma lives is not perfect. It represents much of the canvas of the country – simple, chaotic, caste ridden, patriarchal, ignorant, aspirational, beautiful. All at once. Nothing is glorified, and yet it is not ugly – because the idea of the film is to accept the situation and still rebel to make it better. The colorful, communitarian aspects of the culture are celebrated, the regressive traditions are dumped. Instead of focussing on how India was enslaved for years by outsiders, it turns your attention on the subjugation within – of poverty, caste and patriarchy.
Geeta knows its imperfections. And yet she chooses to stay back, because she believes that people have it in them to change. She chooses to be a part of the solution, “working at the grassroots level” – as she likes to say. In the end, it is she who becomes instrumental in convincing our Mohan to return – not by her preachy sermons on deshbhakti but her actions. The film does not need a macho man to carry the message of patriotism on his shoulders; in fact Mohan hardly even wins a verbal argument with Geeta. And yet, in the end, it is who mobilizes the villagers to bring about the transformation, generating their own hydel power.
I recently completed reading a book that a friend highly recommended – which was on how and why women in India love Shahrukh Khan. His boyish charm and cute dimples notwithstanding, all the women interviewed in the book said that the fact that he is not afraid to show his vulnerability is what appeals to them. That and the fact that he knows how to compliment a woman, making her feel wholesome. I wonder why this film was not mentioned as an example in the book – it is one of his most humbling and charming performances ever. What stays with us is his expressions when the kid, carrying glasses of water runs barefoot at the railway station to earn a pittance. Shahrukh Khan cries. We also cry. We know that he will stay back – “to go places” – as he tells his boss when he resigns.
As India completes its 75th year of independence, there is an entire generation which knows only the history as they are presented in the movies and media propaganda. Patriotism is equated with religious pride, and the rich diversity of the nation is submerged. We need to open Geeta’s spice box more than ever, to remind ourselves of the variety of the tastes which make our country what it is. We need to watch this film again.