It’s a sure six

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">The Champaner team needs six runs to win with only one ball remaining. Kachra is on strike. Bhuvan stands helpless at the non-striker’s end. The ball is bowled and he swings his bat using his functioning arm. They manage a run. It’s all over. Triple tax seems eminent. But wait a minute! It’s a no ball.Bhuvan now needs five from one. His entire life boils down to this one moment. Will he succeed? He cracks the ball across the rope for a six. Hooray! The audience wins. I distinctly remember running out of the theatre after the climax and hugging Ashutosh Gowarikar. Not only had he and his co-writers scripted a near perfect screenplay but he had also pulled off, what in my mind, must have been a treacherous shoot. I have never in my lifetime seen the kind of hysteria in cinema halls like I did while watching this film. The audience was not in the hall. They were sitting around the cricket field rooting for their home team. I know because I was there too. Lagaan is as close to being a complete Indian film as any of the great classics through the generations. The surest way of knowing is when we sit at home, days, weeks and months after watching it, and can still remember every detail, every character, every event and every ball bowled. We still hum the tunes with as much fervour. We pick up the newspaper hoping it has been nominated for the Oscars. We now wait impatiently and with fingers crossed to hear the word Lagaan announced on stage. Not many films can enrapture the mind of its viewer like this. The fact that Lagaan has is testimony to its being complete. <span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">(Farhan Akhtar is director of </span><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">Dil Chahta Hai</span><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">)</span> </div> </div>