Swades
(2004)
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Swades
(2004)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Shah Rukh Khan | ... |
Mohan Bhargav
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Gayatri Joshi | ... |
Gita
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Kishori Balal | ... |
Kaveri amma
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Smith Seth | ... |
Chiku
(as Master Smith Seth)
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Lekh Tandon | ... |
Dadaji - Freedom Fighter
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Rajesh Vivek | ... |
Nivaran Dayal Shrivastav
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Daya Shankar Pandey | ... |
Mela Ram
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Farrukh Jaffar | ... |
Fatima Bi
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Vishnudutt Gaur |
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Raja Awasthi |
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Vishwa S. Badola | ... |
(as Visshwa S. Badola)
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Bhim Vakani |
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Rahul Vohra | ... |
Vinod
(as Rahul Vora)
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Rajesh Balwani |
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Bachan Pachehra | ... |
(as Bachan Pachera)
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Set in modern day India, Swades is a film that tackles the issues that development throws up on a grass root level. It is to this India, which is colorful, heterogeneous and complex that Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), a bright young scientist working as a project manager in NASA, returns to on a quest to find his childhood nanny. The film uses the contrast between the highly developed world of NASA, which has been at the forefront of advances in space research, and this world back home in India, which is at the crossroads of development. Mohan's simple quest becomes the journey that every one of us goes through in search of that metaphysical and elusive place called "home". Written by Anonymous
Ashutosh Gowariker, has really made this movie straight from the heart. It has none of the ridiculous clichés one is typically used to seeing when one sees a story about an India returning home. He has captured something which perhaps no other Indian movie has - that love for ones country can be strong without making an excessively big deal about it.
It is a long movie. But I think the rather leisurely pace of the movie is required because it gives enough time for the protagonist, Mohan Bhargava, to come to India (with his mineral water and caravan) and start to fall in love with its beauty as well as understand its incongruities which frustrate us all as well. I thought there were three moments in the movie that captured it all
1. The feeling he gets when he starts to land in India. All of us feel it. I do even today. It's called coming home. 2. The mineral water - that is a classic. In fact it is a character of its own throughout the movie and plays its own part! 2. The boy serving water at 25paise to the train passengers and Mohan Bhargava's reaction
I am saddened that Indians both in India and around the world have not liked this movie. It will be remembered as an epic. 2.