Swades

Gowariker’s follow-up to his Oscar nominated ‘Lagaan’ is a generally effective, entertaining and, at times, deeply moving ‘journey of personal discovery’. Mohan (Khan), a NASA scientist, takes time out from his hectic job in ‘Amerika’, to visit his former nanny in rural India. The rest of this somewhat overlong film follows his transformation from ‘Non-Resident Indian’ to ‘Non-Returning Indian’ as he finds himself, his people, his love, his country. At one level, Gowariker’s saccarine portrayal of wholesome village life is manipulative and calculated to tug at the heartstrings of the Indian diaspora. On the other hand, the film’s leisurely pace in establishing ordinary characters and events slowly creeps into your senses, so that like India itself, it gets under your skin.