Swades showed us a cosy, gentle nationalism, a stark contrast to the raucous, dramatic variety to come in the 2010s.
Swades is a tale of homecoming, of rediscovery, a love letter to the idea of home itself.Īs a child in the cinema hall, I felt a patriotism which cannot possibly be replicated by the government-mandated national anthems in theatres today. Mohan’s caravan is too big for his little town, just like his ambition was, and just like his ambition, it can never truly be enough to make a home. This unnamed void has been unconsciously passed down to us, their offspring, and we find ourselves simultaneously fitting in everywhere and nowhere. Although successful and reasonably well off, the longing for home, and the desire to be among their own people, has never truly left. Growing up, I could always sense the alienation and loneliness my parents felt, leading lives away from their hometowns. As a child of chaste Tamil Brahmin parents leading their lives in the heart of big bad North India, I felt a sense of connection with the immigrant Mohan Bhargava, a project manager for NASA in the US, who leaves his hometown in pursuit of his dreams. I remember watching Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades in a packed theatre in 2004, possibly my first memory of a Shah Rukh Khan film in a cinema hall, that now-impossible community viewing experience essential to the cinematic medium.
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