Revisiting Lagaan

It was party time for Aamir Khan Productions,which celebrated its decade in existence,as well as the tenth anniversary of Lagaan. Almost everyone associated with the production house — including Abbas Tyrewala,Abhinay Deo,Ashutosh Gowariker and Bhanu Athaiya -— was present to be part of the celebrations,which commenced with the screening of Madness in the Desert,a documentary about the making of Lagaan. Post the screening,Gowariker and Aamir were visibly emotional and repeatedly said that they were “eternally grateful to each other” for making the film. Javed Akhtar too joined in the celebration,along with Amitabh Bachchan,who lent his voice for the film. “I knew it was a unique film as soon as I watched the first cut,” said Bachchan. Aamir also passed around the microphone to the entire starcast of Lagaan,and each of them recounted fun moments from the Lagaan shoot. It was a pleasure to see Aamir giving ample credit to his ex-wife Reena Dutta,for being “the greatest support system” during the making of Lagaan. Also present at the event were Kiran Rao,Avantika and Imran Khan,Aamir’s kids — Ira and Junaid,Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy,Tisca Chopra,Vir Das and Siddharth Roy Kapoor. The two prominent absentees were Anusha Rizvi and Amole Gupte,who Aamir praised immensely for writing the scripts of Peepli Live and Taare Zameen Par,respectively.