Aamir Khan & Gracy Singh in Lagaan

2001...Aamir Khan’s Lagaan releases with great fanfare. The movie is premiered at Sun City, South Africa during the IIFA Awards. Back home it’s busting box-office records. By now everybody knows that that the film is set in 1893 in a turn-of-the-century village whose inmates have accepted a foolhardy dare. Bhuvan’s XI will take on Captain Russell’s XI in a war of the willow and the cherry.

It’s a cricket match that’s more than just a game. The stakes are too high. If Bhuvan and his team of woodcutters and poultry farmers wins, the gaonwallas of Champaner will not have to pay the increased land tax or lagaan for three years. If they lose they’ll be crushed under the weight of their debts. The three-hour-forty- two-minutes film has all the ingredients to keep the audience glued to the film till the end.

Cut to 1957. BR Chopra’s Naya Daur starring Dilip Kumar, Vyjanthimala, Ajit and Jeevan hits the theatres and whips up a frenzy. It’s the story of two happy-go-lucky friends, tangewala Shankar (Dilip Kumar) and woodcutter Krishna (Ajit). The race in the climax between Shankar’s tanga and bad man Kundan’s (Jeevan) bus is as nail-biting as Aamir Khan’s three-day cricket match. Not surprisingly, Naya Daur was as big a hit as Lagaan is. It not only celebrated a jubilee run in India but also made an impression in Indonesia, Russia and the UK, the way Lagaan is doing.

Naya Daur

The similarity between the two films is not limited to the box-office alone. The village backdrop is the same right down to the temple. Gracy Singh is as naively charming as Vyjayanthimala was and one can understand why not just the heroes but even their friends, both of whom interestingly are woodcutters, are drawn to them and when thwarted swear undying revenge, moving to the enemy’s camp. Krishna in Naya Daur snips through the bridge’s support when the race is on and Laaka in Lagaan joins sides with Captain Russel. Of course, eventually misunderstandings are cleared and friendship reasserts itself. The jigri dosts bond again and thwart the machinations of the wily villains (Jeevan and Paul Blackthorne).

In the climax both heroes, Shankar and Bhuvan have the backing of the whole village in their fight-to-the-finish but initially they’re ostracised for accepting a challenge that could spell doom for their gaons. It’s their lady loves who cheer them along. Daisy Irani in Naya Daur and the little boy Bhola in Lagaan are the only others who champion the cause of the underdogs early in both the films. Of course, to win a war you need the support of the majority and both films propagate the maxim, “United we stand and divided we fall.”

Johnny Walker, a journalist who comes in to cover the race of the century, provided the comic element in Naya Daur. In Lagaan it’s Bhura convincingly potrayed by Raghuvir Yadav. Both character actors turn out to be real scene stealers.

The striking similarities between the two films run into the song sequences too. Aamir’s ‘O rey chori...’ has a parallel in Dilip Kumar’s ‘Maang ke saath tumhara...’. The only difference is that Dilip and his paramour are galloping full steam on his tanga while Aamir does his manaoing in a bullock cart. ‘Radha kaise na jale...’ is as hummable as ’Ude jab jab zulfe teri...’ while the strident militant notes of ‘Yeh desh hai veer jawanon ka...’ are reflected in ‘Unki haar ho apni jeet ho...’. Naya Daur’s ‘Saathi haath badana...’ is Lagaan’s ‘O mitwa re...’ and though ‘Ghanan ghanan...’ is far from humorous it manages to draw together the whole village in much the same way that Johnny Walker’s ‘Main Bombay ka babu...’ did in the earlier film. If in Naya Daur they were celebrating the completition of the road, in Lagaan they are rejoicing over the appearance of dark clouds that hopefully will bring rain. Even the bhajan, ‘O paalan hare...’ in its way is in a way an answer to ‘Aana hai to aa...’

Both films are about hope, courage, the fight against injustice and the triumph of the human spirit and have been applauded for their technical virtuosity, power-packed histrionics and directorial brilliance.

It’s common knowledge that Aamir Khan had rejected Lagaan the first time Ashutosh Gowatriker narrated the storyline to him. What few people know is that Dilip Kumar had also turned down Naya Daur the first time BR Chopra took the subject to him. It was Ashok Kumar who persuadaed Dilip Kumar to hear the story with an open mind and the rest is box-office history. Naya Daur’s success was as surprising as Lagaan’s because the film had been written off as “box-office poison” by Subodh Mukerji, Mehboob Khan and even Raj Kapoor. It took a BR Chopra 50 years ago to boldly accept the challenge of making this off-beat film. Lagaan too might well have been lying in the cans had it not been for the enterprising Aamir Khan who after the second hearing was impressed enough to believe that this was a film worth risking Rs 23 crore on. Realising that no one would want to put so much money into so daringly different a film he confounded trade pundits by deciding to produce the film himself. The gamble has paid off and how!

— Johnny D