SWADES

People have their own individual taste be it in terms of movies, songs, books, clothes or anything else for that matter, and we have no right to forcibly alter their likings according to ours. But SOMETIMES, it so happens that we like something SO very much and then realize that people haven’t actually got the real taste of it. That’s when it becomes necessary to tell them how much we liked it!

We all watch a lot of movies and we watch them for the sole reason that we need entertainment. But there are some movies that are made and are supposed to be watched, for reasons other than mere entertainment. Munnabhai MBBS, Rang de Basanti, Lage Raho Munnabhai and Swades are a few of those very special movies that ought to be watched for the simple reason that they’re OUGHT to be watched. (People who haven’t watched EVEN ONE of these, please ignore this blog).

These movies carry along with them, a so-called MESSAGE that needs to be understood by one and all. I don’t want to talk about the first 3 films mentioned above ‘coz there’s hardly anybody who didn’t like them, and that was mainly because these movies had all those extra ingredients necessary to make them a hit. (But still, if you’ve missed out on any one of these by any chance, please do watch it).

But SWADES - well, this movie was never made to make money. In my opinion it’s one of the most meaningful movies made and when I learnt that it was declared a FLOP, trust me it hurt me a lot, not because it wasn't a box-office hit but because of the fact that enough number of people didn’t watch it, and those who did, didn’t like it. It’s a simple movie about an NRI who visits his country after a long time and slowly realizes the grievances of his fellow countrymen and finally decides to do something for his nation. A movie with the same story could have been easily made a hit by just adding a few item songs, a little bit of stupid comedy and a few dances by the leading actors in some foreign locations. But in that case, SWADES would have never turned out to be something as special as it is now and I would’ve never cared to write about it.

I know I'm being quite tardy writing about it now but it so happened that I watched this movie for the second time a few days back and I loved it even more and my urge to write about it became stronger. A few scenes like the one in which the hero visits a poor man and learns about his critically poor condition in life and the scene in which he buys drinking water from a poor lad in the railway station and drinks it – are really touching. If not for anything else, we’ve got to watch this film just to know the darker side of India. Issues like poverty, illiteracy, caste division, etc. are all so effectively brought up in the movie that we actually realize that we have a looooooong way to go. And hats off to ShahRukh Khan for his remarkable performance!

SO, I just wanna say, if you haven’t watched SWADES, please watch it. If you’ve watched it once and didn’t like it, then watch it again. But after reading this, if you happen to watch it again and still don’t like the movie, then please forgive me for the inconvenience caused!