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An acid test for Ashutosh Gowarikar

By Sudha Menon

PUNE, FEB.16. Bollywood whiz kid Ashutosh Gowarikar's new film ``Swades'', is probably Hindi film industry's best-kept secret today, but for the folks in the sleepy hill town of Panchgani, set atop the smoky blue Sahyadri ranges, it is part of their everyday lives.

For over a month now, early morning walkers and people going about their daily routine have seen a bunch of bleary-eyed stars, including Bollywood Badshah Sharukh Khan, crawling back into their hotel room, after a long night of shooting in the bitter cold.

Ashutosh, whose last film, "Lagaan," brought Indian films within a whisker's distance of bagging an Oscar a couple of years ago and the entire cast of ``Swades'', have been staying at a local hotel here since January 15 for an extensive outdoor shoot of the film.

The team includes the long-limbed, Gayatri Joshi, the mystery woman who Gowarikar has roped in as the female interest in the new venture and has kept so much under wraps that not even Mumbai's razor sharp film press, have an idea who she is. Joshi, incidentally, has charmed her way into the hearts of even the waiters at the hotel, with her refreshing girl-next-door attitude and looks.

The $ 6 million film is being funded by the UTV Motion Pictures and is perhaps the acid test for Gowarikar whose stock in the capricious Hindi film industry shot up to dizzy heights after the roller-coaster success of "Lagaan." Predictably, he is unwilling to talk about the film.

"I am so sorry, but I will only be ready to talk about the film in a month from now when I will have done some amount of work on it. I have not talked about it at all till date, '' Gowarikar told The Hindu .

While the director says it is a secret, Wai residents know everything about the film: that it is a modern-day patriotic story about an American-educated young Indian who comes back to the country to take his mother to his adopted country. The mother refuses to leave her homeland and the story takes off from there.

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