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COVER STORY: LAGAAN
Professionalism At Its Best
Housed in Sahjanand
Nivas, a five-storied building in Bhuj that was converted into an ad hoc
hotel, the crew followed a rigid sche-dule. The first shift started at
seven in the morning. Latecomers had to find their own way. On one occasion
Aamir himself was left behind. Says Pradeep Rawat, Deva in Lagaan: "Such
professionalism is hardly seen in the Hindi film industry."
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Gracy Singh
Played Gauri, a young girl from the village
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At a time when every 20-something works hard at being noticed,
the lissome Gracy Singh prefers the quiet of her North Delhi Shalimar
Bagh home. But then she can afford the luxury; she's already bagged
the "best". Playing the role of the charming Gauri to
a fiery Bhuvan in Lagaan, Singh pirouettes her way into people's
hearts as artlessly as she did in the serial Amanat as Dinky. "I
never planned on acting. Now it's an addiction," she says.
And though Singh misses the team spirit and chaos of a TV set she
wants to concentrate on films. "I want to be very careful about
what I do," she says. The choices are getting harder every
day.
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Paul Blackthorne
Played Captain Andrew Russel
He was the worst cricketer on the sets of Lagaan. But the 6 ft
2 in Londoner made up with his newly acquired language skills. "Tum
gulam log hamesha joota ke neeche rahoge," said Blackthorne
to a taxi driver at Mumbai airport. Later, Aamir had to explain
to his leading man that his salutation translated into "you
slaves will always be under our boots". Blackthorne's souvenirs
of "the hardest, most challenging period of my life" include
photographs of Bhuj to be exhibited as "Bollywood Backpack"
at London's Alphabet Gallery. Proceeds go to the Red Cross Gujarat
Earthquake Fund.
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Rachel Shelley
Played Elizabeth, a teacher
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| "I was over
the moon when I got the part," says the actress for whom the
arid plains of Bhuj were a far cry from Swindon and Oxfordshire in
England, and Malta where she grew up. Rachel Shelley, who studied
English and drama at the University of Sheffield, rehearsed for her
part by watching Hindi movies including Ghulam. Delighted by Khan's
"hands-on" approach to filmmaking, Shelley's diary which
was published in The Guardian reveals: "The best part for me
was dressing up... and playing coy with Aamir at twilight." Shelley
says Lagaan is the "biggest project" she has been involved
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Artistes often got upset. Shelley apparently
went ballistic every time an extra Hindi line was added to her dialogue.
But at the end of it all, she had no regrets. "I looked a little
dewy eyed at all the smiling faces that had filled my life those past
months," she says. She wasn't the only one. When Gowarikar and Aamir
planned their return to Kunaria, most of the film's cast and crew wanted
to join them. Sweating it out in the 45 degree celsius heat, Blackthorne
shot a series of pictures because when he returns to London-this time
via Sun City, South Africa, where Aamir staged the premiere of Lagaan-he
will be holding an exhibition of his photographs, "Bollywood Packback".
Its proceeds will be donated to Gujarat's earthquake victims.
For Aamir himself, the visit to Kunaria was personal.
He wanted to keep his promise of showing the film before it was commercially
released to his "friends" in the village. He did not want any
publicity. "It's a personal visit," he said, "and a very
personal bond". For the Whitbys, it was "the most cherished
time of our careers". Kunaria, once Champaner, had touched everyone's
hearts.
Lagaan could have the sort of impact on Indian
cinema that Star Wars had on Hollywood; it's the first modern epic to
emerge from its mother industry. True, it borrowed from Escape to Victory-the
Pele starrer in which intrepid Allied POWs defeat the Nazis in a pulsating
football game. Granted, it is not quite true to history-about the only
analogous real-life event was the barefooted Bengalis of Mohun Bagan overcoming
the East Yorkshire Regiment football team in the IFA Shield final in 1911.
Yet there is a certain poetic irony in the fact
that Gujarat, the state chosen to depict a momentous cricket duel in fictionalised
Avadh, was also home to the one Indian who had played top class cricket
by 1893-the future Jamsaheb of Nawanagar, the immortal Ranji. As Bhuvan
and his merry XI won a famous if celluloid victory on an ersatz pitch,
somewhere in the deserts of Kutch the great grandfather of Indian cricket
must have broken into a chuckle.
--With Himanshi Dhawan in Mumbai and
Amit Roy and Suman Bhuchar
in London
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