When Americans wanted Aamir Khan's autograph Watching Lagaan in New York

Aseem Chhabra

It is a warm and pleasant spring evening in New York.

I could have chosen to spend my time outdoors, perhaps taken a meal at a sidewalk café. Instead I decide to place myself in a dark theater for four hours watching a Bollywood film for the third time.

Director Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan opened in desi theatres in New York last June. I loved every moment of it --- the epic quality, the script with a singular focus, the way the songs are woven into the story line.

And its often-hokey sentimentality --- the triumph of justice over injustice, of good over evil.

That was almost a year ago. Since then, like a multi-headed monster that refuses to die, Lagaan keeps resurfacing. The official Indian entry for the Oscars, winning the Oscar nomination, the race for the final award ceremony on March 24, and now the post-Oscar Lagaan, reaching the wider audience in the US and later this summer in Europe.

This was something that producer-actor Aamir Khan had not expected. Two weeks ago, at a press junket in New York, prior to the film's US art-house release, Khan said: "It's been quite crazy, unlike a normal film which would release at one time and maybe I would travel for two months wherever it was playing. With Lagaan it has happened in stages."

Last week Sony Pictures Classics took a bold step and released Lagaan on two screens in the US --- Film Forum, New York and Nuart, West Los Angeles. It is an experiment --- probably the first time a Bollywood film has been released in the US for what Khan described as a "crossover audience." The film opened to enthusiastic reviews from the mainstream American press in the two cities.

Film Forum, located on Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue and Varrick Street in West Greenwich Village, is my favourite art house theater in New York. Film Forum has three screens. The other theatres are currently showing a 1977 documentary about the New Left --- A Grin Without A Cat and a festival of classic Hollywood comedies. Certainly not an ideal place to release a blockbuster Bollywood film, but people are keeping their fingers crossed. Nobody knows whether the American audience will accept the film.

So on Friday May 10, I decide to see for myself how the American audience would react to a Bollywood film.

Due to its length, Film Forum has scheduled two screenings each day --- 1.30 pm and 7.30 pm. I walk into the 141-seat theatre at 7.15 pm; it is half full. There are New Yorkers of all type and shades --- retired men, middle-aged couples, women with European accents, hip twentysomethings, even a handful of desis.

I can hear Radha kaise na jale playing in the background. I never thought the day would come that I would hear [playback singer] Asha Bhosle's voice at a theater where I am used to seeing works of Bernardo Bertolucci, Francois Truffaut, Orson Welles and Woody Allen.

I introduce myself to the man sitting to my right. Maurice Cagnon is a 64-year-old retired teacher who now translates literary works from French to English and vice versa. This is his first Bollywood film. The length of the film doesn't bother him.

"If it is a worthy presentation, I don't care about the length," he says. "I have read several contemporary Indian authors. You know, like [Vikram] Seth and [Arundhati] Roy. Invariably their works have references --- mostly pejorative --- to Bollywood films. The reviews were so good. So I wanted to see for myself what this film is all about."

Two Indian women seated in front of me are listening to our conversation. They turn out to be mother and daughter. Mohini Sarin, 34-year-old-daughter says she was born in England. "The circumstances of my birth divorced me from Indian culture," she says. "But I see these films because they are subtitled. I also feel strongly against the British colonial policies."

The theatre is nearly full by the time the lights dim. Before the film starts, the side door opens. Against the light in the hallway outside, I see Aamir Khan slip inside. Obviously here to check out the reaction to his film, he walks to the last row at the back, and sits in a corner seat. A year after the release of Lagaan, this man still keeps pushing the film, never giving up hope.

The film starts. By the time Goli (Dayashanker Pandey) and Bhura (Raghveer Yadav) are arguing, the audience is laughing. Gauri (Gracy Singh) gets her palm read by Guran (Rajesh Vivek) --- there is more laughter. They are actually enjoying this film, I say to myself.

The first song --- Ghanan ghanan meets a strange silence. It seems the audience cannot figure out what to make of the music, the choreography, the singing. But with the reflection of the screen flashing on the audience, I definitely see smiling faces as Bhuvan (Khan) and his friends sing and dance Mitwa.

When Radha kaise na jale starts, the elderly American man sitting to my left says to his wife "Ah, dandiya dance." At intermission, several people in the audience clap and the man turns to me and says that he used to perform dandiya.

He says his name is Carl Schlesinger and he is 75 years old. A few decades ago he lived in Nairobi where he watched Bollywood films regularly. The films were not subtitled. During intermissions he would look for familiar faces in the theatre so they could explain the story line to him.

"This is just wonderful," Schlesinger's wife Renee, 76 says about Lagaan. "India has finally come up with the right formula. This has everything --- love, grand photography, relationship between Hindus and Muslims, nationalist spirit, even some flakey stuff."

"I say, whatever happened to Mumtaz?" Schlesinger asks out of the blue. "I used to like her films."

I tell them Mumtaz quit the Indian film industry when she married East African businessman Mayur Madhvani.

"Yes, I remember Madhvani," Renee says. "We used to pour Madhvani syrup over our pancakes in Nairobi."

By now I have told a few people that the actor from the film is in the audience. Some turn back to stare at Aamir Khan. I spot a friend Shahana Sen in the back. She cannot believe Khan is sitting in the same row.

After the intermission, the audience really enjoys the O ri chhori sequence. I hear lots of laughter, even some clapping as Rachel Shelley starts to lip-sync to Vasundhra Das' voice. "This is Indian Disney at its best," Schlesinger tells me.

The rest of the movie, including the cricket scenes, works ike magic. Raised on baseball and not accustomed to cricket, the audience has no trouble understanding the game. They laugh again and again at all the right moments. During tense moments in the game, there is complete silence.

More clapping as the film ends.

"I had no idea it would be an epic film," says a smiling Cagnon. "What a spectacle."

Schlesinger predicts that Sony Pictures Classics will soon shift the film to a larger screen, such as at a Loews Cineplex theatre.

At 11.30 pm, I walk out of Film Forum. Aamir Khan is standing outside, smoking. I walk up to him and introduce myself. Soon, more and more people recognise him.

Desis shake hands and stop to talk to him. Americans ask him for autographs. The star is smiling. He is thrilled.

The experiment has definitely worked.

Aseem Chhabra is Senior Contributor, Rediff.com/ India Abroad

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