Swades spoke to me
Several years ago, I had lunch with the then finance minister of India [ Images ] Manmohan Singh [ Images ] and his family in their sprawling government bungalow in New Delhi [ Images ]. During lunch Dr Singh had a brief private conversation with me. He told me that things had improved substantially in India and the country needed people like myself -- foreign educated MBAs (one of the two master's degrees I have earned in the US) to come back and work there.
Twenty-three years ago, I was a young student, when I first moved to New York City and in these past two decades so many people have asked me why I do not move back to India. There were friends who suggested that I should return to India to take over my father's successful publishing business; aunts, uncles and cousins who hinted that I should come back and live in India to be with my parents who are now in their mid-70s.
Last year, another politician -- the former Indian minister of state for external affairs and a friend from university in India, Digivijay Singh, said this in so many words. "What are you doing in America?" he asked. "Come back to India, and work for a newspaper there. So many more people will read your writing." And two weeks ago a journalist friend from Mumbai [ Images ] asked why I live in the US where I really do not belong.
All of these thoughts and words played through my mind last night as I watched a preview of Ashutosh Gowariker's [ Images ] ambitious, but at times flawed and way too long new film -- Swades [ Images ]. In brief, the film is about an NRI, who visits India to look up his childhood nanny, and in the process rediscovers his connections, roots and falls in love with the land of his birth. The film is handsomely shot, with heartfelt performances and charming songs in the tradition of Gowariker's last project -- Lagaan [ Images ].
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