The role of Mohan was first offered to Hrithik Roshan who refused after reading the script. thumb - the village in Maharashtra where Swades was shot 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. 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.

Soundtrack

[http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayReview.php?id=042806030453 link]| Last album = Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa [2004] | This album = Swades[2004] | Next album = Kisna: The Warrior Poet [2004]| }} {{Track listing | all_music = A. R. Rahman | all_lyrics = Javed Akhtar | extra_column = Artist[s] | title1 = Yeh Tara Woh Tara | extra1 = Udit Narayan, Master Vignesh, Baby Pooja | length1 = 7:13 | title2 = Saanwariya Saanwariya | extra2 = Alka Yagnik | length2 = 5:17 | title3 = Yun Hi Chala Chal | extra3 = Udit Narayan, Kailash Kher, Hariharan | length3 = 7:28 | title4 = Aahista Aahista | extra4 = Udit Narayan, Sadhana Sargam | length4 = 6:49 | title5 = Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera | extra5 = A. R. Rahman | length5 = 6:28 | title6 = Pal Pal Hai Bhaari | extra6 = Madhushree, Vijay Prakash, Ashutosh Gowariker | length6 = 6:50 | title7 = Dekho Na | extra7 = Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan | length7 = 5:46 | title8 = Pal Pal Hai Bhaari | note8 = Flute | length8 = 3:38 | title9 = Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera | note9 = Shehnai | length9 = 4:00 }}

[[filmfare awards]]

= Winners: *Best Actor-Shahrukh Khan *Filmfare Best Background Score - A.R. Rahman

[[star screen awards]]

= *Star Screen Award Most Promising Newcomer - Female - Gayatri Joshi

Box office

Swades, due to its length, offbeat theme and mixed reaction from the critics, was an average fare at the Indian box office and above average overseas.

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh from Indiafm commented, "a disappointing effort from a much-hyped director. Despite the effort, theres nothing in the movie to watch. Yes, obviously Shahrukh Khan is there." He called the movie a lengthy documentary. Other critics also criticized the movie for its length and content. However, after a long time mainstream Bollywood returns to Indian grassroot. Performance by Shahrukh is praised. Jitesh Pillai from Indiatimes gave the movie four stars saying "Swades is undoubtedly the No 1 movie of the year". Despite the mixed reaction from critics the film went on to become a cult classic and currently holds a rating of 8.4 out of 10 at IMDB.

Plot summary

Mohan Bhargava [Shahrukh Khan] is an NRI working at NASA in a lucrative and prestigious position. He had been a student at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school with a large Asian population. After twelve years in the US, he decides to return to India to find his nanny, Kaveri Amma, with whom he has completely lost touch. Along the way, he meets a number of interesting people from the village called Charanpur where Kaveri Amma now lives; theres the village postmaster, eager to know more about e-mails and the internet, while also having a keen hobby of wrestling; the ex-freedom fighter who teaches history at the local school and is a lone voice of reason amongst the village elders; theres also a cook who harbours ambitions of opening a dhaba on a US freeway, and sees in Mohan an opportunity to get himself a visa. While Mohan soon adapts himself to life in the village and endears himself to its people, he also encounters some of its harsher aspects. Among them are poverty, caste discrimination, child marriage, illiteracy, a general disregard for education and an apathy to change. He tries in his own way to bring about some change, even succeeding to the point of dissuading the village elders from moving the local school to smaller and far-away premises. In doing this, he earns the respect of Gita [Gayatri Joshi], a childhood acquaintance who lives with Kaveri Amma and runs the local school. One day, Kaveri Amma sends him away to another village called Kodi to collect dues from a farmer named Haridas who has rented their land. Along the journey, Mohan realizes that the problems he had seen in the village mirror those faced by almost all other villages in the country. Haridas, the farmer who owes rent has no money to feed his own family, mainly because the villagers wouldnt support his attempts at a change of occupation from weaving to farming. Mohan returns empty-handed but resolves to take more interest in improving the quality of life of the villagers. He enlists the support of a few hundred men and guides them through the building of a reservoir beneath a perennial spring on a nearby hill. Buying turbines and other equipment with his own money, he sets up a small hydro-electric power plant that would solve the problem of irregular electricity and make the village self-sufficient. By then, its time for him to leave as his project at NASA is near its final stage. Kaveri Amma, whom he had intended to take along with him, refuses to come citing the difficulty of adapting to a new culture at such a late stage in her life. Gita, whom he had fallen in love with, also refuses to come with him, wanting to remain in the country and continue running the school that her parents had founded. He returns alone but feels a growing sense of responsibility towards his country and guilt for not being able to do much for the welfare of its people. He, nevertheless, stays to finish his project at NASA before resigning and returning to India.

Themes

Mahatma Gandhis great-grandson, Tushar Gandhi noted the theme of Gandhism in the film. The name of the main character portrayed by Shahrukh Khan is Mohan, which was also Mahatma Gandhis birth name [Mohandas or "Mohan"]. The film also opens with the following quotation from Gandhi: Taking the Ram Lila episode as its point of departure, a paper presented at the DANAM-AAR conference on 6 November 2009 in Montreal attempts to demonstrate how the narrative of the movie systematically engages and reinterprets the national epic with Mohan and Gita cast partly in the role of Rāma and Sītā. The essay simultaneously interprets its moral framework and its aesthetics of the gaze [nazar] in the light of the classical Indian theory of the purushārthas and the rasas respectively. The ambivalent treatment of the non-resident Indian [NRI] and the themes of exile and of nostalgia, in both their psychological and metaphysical dimensions, are also explored, especially around AR Rehmans soulful rendering of yah jo desh hai terā.

Notes

[[national film awards]]

= *National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer - Udit Narayan *Special Jury Award - Ashutosh Gowariker *National Film Award for cinematographer - Mahesh Anay

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. Producer Ashutosh Gowariker spent considerable time with Aravinda and Ravi, both dedicated Association for Indias Development [AID] volunteers. Gowarikar supposedly visited Bilgaon, an adivasi village in the Narmada valley, which is the backdrop of the Narmada Bachao Andolan [NBA] movement. The people of Bilgaon are credited with doing 2000 person-days of shramdaan [community service] to make their village energy self-sufficient. The Bilgaon project is recognized as a model for replication by the Government of Maharashtra. A majority of film critics familiar to south Indian cinema allege that the film is a remake of the Kannada film Chigurida Kanasu, based on a novel of the same name by Shivaram Karanth, legendary playwright and a Jnanapeetha awardee. This claim was repudiated by Swades writer M G Sathya who said that he had been working on the story since the 1980s. The rudimentary theme of the film, however, resembles the Kannada literary masterpiece.

Nominated

= *Best Director *Best Film *Best Lyricist *Best Music Director *Best Playback Singer - Female *Best Playback Singer - Male

[[zee cine awards]]

= *Zee Cine Award Best Female Debut - Gayatri Joshi

[[bollywood movie awards]]

= *Best Debut Female - Gayatri Joshi

[[global indian film awards]]

= *Best Actor - Shahrukh Khan *Best Newcomer - Gayatri Joshi

Film café awards

= *Best Actor - Shahrukh Khan

Rupa cinegoers awards for jury best actor

= *Jury Best Actor - Shahrukh Khan