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Swades: The rediff connection

December 15, 2004 11:31 IST
Go to www.swades.com

Click on Enter HTML Site.

Click on Acknowledgements at the bottom right of the screen that comes up.

You see rediff.com columnist Dilip D'Souza, right?

Explanation: The director, Ashutosh Gowariker, says Dilip, got the idea for the film from a column Dilip did for rediff.com about two young engineers from Kerala who built a dam in rural Maharashtra and supplied electricity where there was none. That is what Swades is about.

Says Dilip, "I had no idea about all this till about a month ago, when the person who told him (Ashutosh)
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about my article, a journalist friend called Rajni Bakshi, told me she had told him."

What does he think of Swades?

"Go see the film," says Dilip. "It's really very good, I think, better than Lagaan. Puts out some fine messages, does it subtly, Shah Rukh Khan is understated, there are no idiotic choreographed dance sequences, no fights."

"I don't know if you would also like to mention," adds Dilip, "that my articles about these two guys was used to nominate them for the MIT technovators prize last year, which they actually won (see third entry at http://technovators.mit.edu/winner2003.php)."
 rediff Entertainment Bureau