B - ?Lagaan? the Bollywood Film

Film Review - "Lagaan" the Bollywood Film

"Lagaan" the Bollywood film was screened last year at the Oscar Film
festival, under the category of Foreign Films.

The title 'Lagaan' means Tax.

The setting is 1893, in a village named Champanir. The poor villagers
are worried for there had been very little rain the previous two years
and that years monsoon did not bring showers but left the earth dry and
parched, at places, the earth opening up, showing how thirsty it
was.

Those were the days of the British Raj in India. There were princely
states in India ruled by Rajas and Maharajas. These princely rulers
collected revenue or lagaan from the farmers, in the form of a part of
their agricultural yield. These poor peasants couldn't even afford a
square meal a day. Agriculture in those days depended on the monsoon
rains and with monsoon showing its ugly face for the last two years and
the present one, these peasants were unable to pay their lagaan.

On the other hand, the princely rulers, in order to protect their
territories from their neighbouring states took the help from the
Britishers who ruled India. In return they paid the Britishers half of
the lagaan they collected from the different villages under their
rule.

The story goes ?????

To the south of the village Champanir was the Raja's palace and
touching its boundaries was the British Cantonment headed by Captain
Russell.

One day under the leadership of the village headman, the villagers had
gone to meet their Raja (King) and found that he was occupied in
watching a game played by the Britishers. A young lad named Bhuvan had
got hold of the ball which had strayed near to him while the game was
going on. Picking up the ball he said that it was a silly game. They
had come to the Raja to tell him that they were unable to pay the
Lagaan for that year. No rains, dry fields and the hot sun was all that
they were having in their lives.
Bhuvan had earlier harassed Captain Russell in his game of hunting by
disturbing the deer's that Russell was aiming at. So when he heard the
villagers praying for relief from paying their lagaan, he insisted the
Raja to collect twice the amount as they had paid only half the amount
the previous year.

The story takes a turn when Captain Russell tells the villagers that he
would forfeit the lagaan for three years if the villagers could defeat
his team in a game of cricket. Bhuvan agreed but the others were
unhappy for this was an unknown game to them. But Bhuvan compared the
game of cricket with that of gilli danda (a rural Indian game played
with two sticks).

At first no one joins Bhuvan instead curse him for taking up the
challenge. A village belle Gauri supports him for she loves him.
Gradually one by one joins his team starting with a young boy, followed
by the fortune teller, the black smith, the vaidya (doctor), the helper
at the temple, the harijan and many others. Bhuvan formed his cricket
team and Elizabeth, the younger sister of Captain Russell took the help
of Ram Singh her interpreter cum attendant, to secretly help them learn
the game. After the specified three months the game is played between
the English players and the peasants. The Britishers were in their
white cricketing dress and proper gears while the villagers were in
their usual attire and hand made gears. All the excitement of the game
is there in the film. The thrill, the suspense can only be revealed
only after seeing the film.

The innocence, the zeal, the enthusiasm and above all the fight out for
a living by these villagers is picturised wonderfully. The setting of a
village is so perfect and so typical. Each and every artist has played
his/her role perfectly. Moreover, one can find this film is also packed
with colourful song and dance sequences in association with
entertaining music.

Lagaan has a lot of English dialogues and sub-titles in English, which
will not pose a problem for movie lovers who do not understand Hindi.
Movie lovers can grab the earliest opportunity to see this film.