Mumbai, Veteran actor Suhasini Mulay says filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker was so struck by her National Film Award-winning turn in the social drama “Hu Tu Tu” that he set out to find and cast her in “Lagaan”, his 2001 sports drama that would later attain cult status as one of Hindi cinema’s most celebrated films.
In the film, which completes 25 years on June 15, Mulay delivered one of Hindi cinema’s most enduring portrayals of motherhood as Yashodamai, the supportive mother of Aamir Khan’s Bhuvan.
Mulay recalled that Gowariker chanced upon a promo of “Hu Tu Tu” on television and was instantly struck by her screen presence. “Who is that woman?” he asked.
Gowariker’s mother, who happened to be in the room, immediately recognised Mulay and recalled her debut in Mrinal Sen’s 1969 classic “Bhuvan Shome”.
“So, they had to actually track me. The guy who plays Kachra, Aditya Lakhia, I know his mother very well, they got Lakhia and through his mother got my phone number and contacted me,” Mulay told PTI in an interview.
“Lagaan”, a period sports drama, was set against the backdrop of British rule in 1893 and followed the people of a small village in central India as they take on an arrogant British officer’s extraordinary cricket challenge in a bid to free themselves from crushing taxes.
In the film, Aamir Khan’s spirited Bhuvan brings together an unlikely team of villagers to take on the British in a high-stakes cricket match that unfolds over three days and ultimately ends in a historic victory.
“Lagaan” demanded an unusual level of commitment, according to Mulay, with the cast required to dedicate seven months exclusively to it.
“Not everybody was in a position to give seven months for a film. But both Ashutosh and Aamir were not willing to compromise on that. If you got onto the project, you had to give them seven months straight or forget it,” said the 75-year-old actor, also known for her performances in critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful movies like “Bhavni Bhavai”, “Aparoopa” and “Dil Chahta Hai”.
“Lagaan” was made on a huge canvas and Mulay credited Gowariker’s clarity of vision, saying the filmmaker was very particular about each and every detail from the posture to the costumes of every single character.
She added that while the filmmaker welcomed creative input from the cast and crew, any ideas he disliked were instantly shot down.
For example, Gowariker turned down Khan’s suggestion to give Bhuvan a moustache and also rejected Mulay’s request to change the colour of her costume from white to a muddier shade.
“We were just in the backdrop in many scenes but he said, ‘Whenever you stand you won’t stand straight with your hands hanging on your side. Please put one hand in front or back or hold your dupatta. I don’t want Bhuvan’s mother to look like she’s straight and defeated, you have to stand in an interesting manner’,” Mulay recounted.
“Lagaan” featured an ensemble cast including Gracy Singh, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raghubir Yadav, Rajendra Gupta, Raj Zutshi, Akhilendra Mishra, Yashpal Sharma, AK Hangal, Shrivallabh Vyas, Pradeep Rawat, Rachel Shelley, Paul Blackthorne among others.
The 75-year-old actor said the entire cast read the script together, a practice she believes shaped the team’s dynamic.
“When you’re reading together, you automatically begin to understand the rhythms of where other people are coming from. Each person is coming in with their own interpretation of their character so then it falls like a painting on a larger canvas,” she said.
Life on the set, Mulay said, was highly disciplined yet warm, balancing early call times and long days by relaxing together post pack-up.
On the way to the set at 5:30 am, the team would chant the Gayatri mantra on the bus, which the English actors were clueless about.
But the return journey was all about unwinding, from playing dumb charades to table tennis.
Among her co-actors, Mulay praised Yadav, calling him “an amazing human being” and a “superb actor”, while also highlighting the efforts the British actors took in learning the Hindi dialogues for the film.
Upon its release, “Lagaan” earned acclaim and was a blockbuster hit, besides winning numerous accolades including National film awards and was also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 74th Academy Awards. It lost to “No Man’s Land” from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mulay believes the film’s success and legacy were largely tied to its cricket narrative, which overshadowed her work.
“For the cricket team, for Ashutosh and some of the crew, it changed everything but not for people like me, who were women. Like, in a murder mystery, people remember the murder but they don’t remember the build-up to the murder.
“So, I was part of the build-up but not part of the cricket ,” the actor said adding that a significant portion of her character did not make it to the final cut primarily due to length restrictions.
Interestingly, her role as the mother to Akshaye Khanna in “Dil Chahta Hai”, which released the same year, opened more work opportunities.
“I didn’t get much work after ‘Lagaan’ even though it was a super duper hit. I got more work after ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ because of the work I did in it , but that has to do with the storyline. The fact is that cricket was such a memorable thing and the film was well-known for that, so I can understand that completely.”
Mulay seems to have no ill-feelings about it and instead collaborated with Gowariker on his subsequent films like “Jodha Akbar”, “Mohenjo Daro”, “Panipat” and even acted in a show he produced, titled “Everest”.
“If he wants to cast me, he’ll call, I feel very awkward going to directors to say, ‘Please cast me’. I know a lot of actors who do that and actors are supposed to do it but I don’t do that.”
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