Mr. Gowarikar - I am now a true fan.

I did not much like Lagaan because I was put off by the cricket fantasy component in the film, by the unreal premise. But with Swades Ashutosh Gowarikar has shown that he can make a mature movie on a burning topic, make it in an almost documentary style, yet keep the hearts and minds of the audience engaged. Swades shows the current ills in rural India (which BTW have changed little over the years) in a gentle - nudging us into realization - way. The main point is not that a little reservoir is built and electricity generated, but the fact that given the right catalyst, change can happen from within the confines of this rural society and at the local level. The story is simplistic at best but somehow resonates with young and old alike. The usual trappings are present but are very subdued, the ensemble of characters is so authentic I am convinced that he spent a fair amount of time in a village studying the social structure there.

What I loved: The building of the tale - The slow acceptance of rural life by the NRI Mohan - sleeping in camper, then on a string bed (Khatiya), bathing in the camper, then at the well. The village caste and social hierarchy - most authentically portrayed by the open air cinema with the upper castes in front and the dalits (lower casts) behind the screen - subtle! The desire to better one's life abroad - MelaRam was amazing! The Village panchayat, the wrestling, the post office (and postmaster!), the Ramlila - these slices of village life were amazing.

The portrayals - Mohan - could any one but SRK have done this role as well? I doubt it. With his glam sort of image in the usual fare, you expect certain things in his portrayals - but all I saw was the nerdy engineer Mohan. There was no evidence of the superstar persona - just the simple engineer type, perturbed by all he sees around him, unable to comprehend why things are the way they are, then in true engineer type problem solving way setting out to slowly change things. His breakdown on the rent collection trip ending in buying and drinking water at a small train station is the most intense and yet underplayed performance I have ever seen. I NEVER cry in films and I was looking for the Kleenex in these shots! Kudos to the award deciders, if they had given him an award for Veer Zaara over Swades I would never ever look at these awards for any validation of any kind.

Gayatri Joshi as Geeta was good, a bit polished looking, but she was a Delhi educated girl so OK. She held her own in almost every scene and said much using her eyes and expressions.

Kaveriamma - we need more mother types roles to go to her, I wanted her to be my Mom! Nivaranji, MelaRam, the entire gram panchayat, what an assemblage of authentic characters.

The music - I have heard that this is ARR's personal favorite album. It shows - the road song is fabulous, Yeh Tara, Dekho naa, are divine. But the top award goes to Yeh jo des hai tera sung by the Maestro himself. This is some of the best music to come along after a long time and the previous stuff like this for me was - yes you guessed it - ARR and Dil se.

The bad: The Sanwariya song is beautiful but could be chopped out to shorten the film, ditto for the Ramlila sequence. Some of the stuff was a bit preachy but then in Hindi cinema the obvious often needs to be stated.

Overall this is among my all time favorite movies - I will be watching out for the next one from Mr. G. Above all, thank you for wringing such a career best performance out of SRK, we knew there was good stuff in him, just needed to see it again.