Swades

Swades: We, the People (, , , ) is a 2004 Indian film written, produced and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. The film stars Shahrukh Khan and debutante Gayatri Joshi. Swades received very good reviews from critics and a cult following from Indian and other South Asian audiences around the world.

Plot summary

Mohan Bhargava (Shahrukh Khan) is an NRI working at NASA as a Project Manager. He had been a student at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. After twelve years in the US, he decides to return to India to find his nanny, Kaveri Amma (Kishori Balal), with whom he has completely lost touch. Along the way, he meets a number of interesting people from the village called Charanpur where Kaveri Amma now lives; there's the village postmaster, eager to know more about e-mails and the internet, while also having a keen hobby of wrestling; the ex-freedom fighter who teaches history at the local school and is a lone voice of reason amongst the village elders; there's also a cook who harbours ambitions of opening a dhaba on a US freeway, and sees in Mohan an opportunity to get himself a visa.

While Mohan soon adapts himself to life in the village and endears himself to its people, he also encounters some of its harsher aspects. Among them are poverty, caste discrimination, child marriage, illiteracy, a general disregard for education and an apathy to change. He tries in his own way to bring about some change, even succeeding to the point of dissuading the village...
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