Memories of Lagaan

Its Diwali today. Am in Rayagada, a small town / district in the south of Orissa. Rayagada is where my father in law worked with JK Paper Mills and retired. Like almost everybody of that generation, he chose to settle down here gotten built a small abode for himself.
With diwali comes new clothes, crackers, sweets and good old family get together around TV. I have grown up watching some Tamil movies over Diwali like Baasha, Muthu and Annamalai. Today while zapping channels I chanced upon the Aamir Khan epic – Lagaan.

I have very very fond memories of this movie…simply because it takes me back to my days in Lintas when I was working on a big consumer promotion for Britannia with Lagaan. While I did catch it in the theatres, over the next 45 days I might have seen it over 30-40 times. And during this time office or the studio was my home...depending on where I was....It was also because the entire consumer promotion and hence the communication package was designed around the movie. The sales audio visual, the TV commercials, radio jingles, posters, danglers etc etc. The project also gave me access to the making of the move, rare footages, pictures, related stories etc. This helped me a great deal in contributing to making the communication so much more in sync with the movie.

Like Sholay & a lot of other cult movies I could almost recite the whole story frame by frame, the character names, dialogues etc. While it was a very very serious movie, it had its own share of comedy which kept it light. The entire cricket team of Bhuvan (Aamir) was so well casted! So were the other elements in the movie – the location, sets, music etc. To top it all the legendary narration of Amitabh Bachchan!

Though I had watched the movie so many times, every time I saw a piece of communication coming out I would jump with joy.

After all the handwork, the highpoint was when I got a chance to be part of the launch press conference where in Aamir & his cricket team was present. I was surprised to see all of them look at the screen in utmost awe when the audio visual was played. The icing on the cake was of course a personalized autograph from Aamir and of course a cricket bat with the autograph of the entire team!

Its been a good 7 years. Watching the movie made me feel as if it was yesterday. Time is flying……..And how!!!