Daya Shankar Pandey

Set in modern day Indian, Swades (Our Country) is a film that tackles the issues facing the citizens of this nation on a grass roots level. The India of Swades is colorful, heterogeneous and complex and it is to this environment that Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), a bright young scientist working as project manager in NASA, returns to, on a quest to find his childhood nanny.What begins as a simple mission prompted by nostalgia and affection turns into a journey to the heartland of rural India, both literally and metaphorically.

Champaner… a small farming village in central India. The year is 1893. On the outskirts of the village stands a British cantonment, commanded by Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne) – An arrogant and capricious man, who wields the power of life and death over the villages under his jurisdiction. When the villagers are unable to pay the crippling land tax imposed on them by their British rulers due to draught and famine, Captain Russell offers them a challenge. To assemble a team and face the British soldiers in a game of cricket, a game they have never heard of.