IT’S HARD to believe 25 years have passed since I first saw Lagaan at its UK premiere on June 13, 2001 at the Warner Village Cinema in Leicester Square.
To mark the anniversary, Aamir Khan, who produced the movie and played the lead, Bhuvan, will be speaking about Lagaan at the London Indian Film Festival next month.
I went to Los Angeles in March 2002, when Lagaan was shortlisted for an Oscar in the foreign language category. Lalit Mansingh, the Indian ambassador in Washington who had previously been high commissioner in London, responded enthusiastically to my suggestion, flew to Los Angeles and hosted a glittering Hollywood style party for the cast of Lagaan at the Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills.
“I am here to raise the flag for India,” he said. “I have always believed that films are an important instrument of our diplomatic and foreign policy. The reach of Indian films is more global than we realise. What we seek with Hollywood is a strategic partnership.”
Rachel Shelley as ElizabethAamir Khan Productions
The film, set in 1893, involves a cricket match between the British rulers in India and poor villagers who are further impoverished by the crippling taxes imposed on them. Aamir’s Bhuvan finally goes off with the village belle, Gauri, played by Gracy Singh. But the one who really loves him is an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Russell, portrayed by Rachel Shelley. Elizabeth is the one who breaks with her own brother and the English community at large to declare her love for Bhuvan in broken Hindi. That, I think, took greater courage.
I reckon Lagaan might well have won the Oscar had Bhuvan married not Gauri, but Elizabeth.
A perceptive review by Roger Ebert, the legendary film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013, noted: “Lagaan is an enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we’ve ever seen before, and yet completely familiar.”
He put his finger on the right question: “There is the intriguing question of whether the hero will end up with his childhood sweetheart, or cross color lines with the Victorian woman (this is hard to predict, since both women are seen in entirely positive terms).”
Lagaan was directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, whom I first met at the Oscars. I met him again sipping coffee at a pavement cafe on the Croisette in Cannes in May 2011. As we talked of old days, he looked startled when I set out my little reworking of Lagaan with the English girl getting the Indian hero.
“That wouldn’t work in India!” he laughed.
Aamir with co-star Gracy SinghAamir Khan Productions
In February 2005, I covered an exhibition, Eton and India, curated by Andrew Robinson, a history teacher at Eton College, who told me: “I want to capture Eton’s relationship with India over 200 plus years.”
The way that the British ruled India could partly be explained by the values that 11 viceroys and five governors-general – the roll call included the peers Curzon, Cornwallis, Canning, Lansdowne, Irwin and Linlithgow – had acquired on the playing fields of Eton.
Robinson did try to give both the British and Indian points of view when tackling, say, the 1857 uprising. In his classroom, he kept various films as teaching aids, especially Lagaan. As the master who was also in charge of cricket, Bhuvan’s winning last ball six must have amused him – and the boys.
Since films about cricket are notoriously difficult to make, Aamir should be congratulated for making a movie that will give real enjoyment to audiences 25 years from now – and beyond.
Lagaan received a very positive review from Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian: “Much touted as the most expensive Bollywood musical ever and the first to include British actors, this might just do for the genre what Crouching Tiger did for the martial arts romance. Lagaan is a lavish epic, a gorgeous love story, and a rollicking adventure yarn. Larger than life and outrageously enjoyable, it’s got a dash of spaghetti western, a hint of Kurosawa, with a bracing shot of Kipling.
“The acting is a bit broad-brush, especially for the British chaps, but Ashutosh Gowariker’s film is virile, muscular storytelling, with rich musical dance numbers, and inspired touches like an Untouchable inventing off-spin. A heavily bewhiskered Chris England plays a vicious bodyline bowler. Go and see it.”
The film is going to be shown next month. I only wish it had won an Oscar. But Lagaan prepared the ground for the success of Slumdog Millionaire in 2009.
