Ashutosh Gowariker’s ‘Swades’, featuring Shahrukh Khan, was released back in 2004 but is relevant even today. The themes that the film explored and the issues that it addressed continue to resonate with the film-watching audience and society at large.
However, did you know that ‘Swades’ was inspired by an episode of ‘Yule Love Stories’, an anthology that aired in 1993-1994 on Zee TV? The episode was named ‘America Return’ and the character of Mohan was played by none other than Ashutosh Gowariker himself.
Even the late actress who plays Kaveri Amma in ‘Swades’, Kishori Ballal, plays the same character in this episode. But Geeta’s role is essayed by a different actress. Many of the scenes in this episode are identical to those of ‘Swades’.
This detail, along with a video capturing a few scenes from the episode, was shared on Twitter by a woman named Mimansa Shekhar.
#AshutoshGowariker played an NRI – Mohan in episode America Return (Vapasi) of #ZeeTV anthology #YuleLoveStories (1993-94). He comes to meet his Kaveri Amma (late Kishori Ballal herself)
Do you think this inspired him to make #Swades (2004)?#ShahRuhKhan
Here's an edited clip 👇 pic.twitter.com/bVelllFOyW— Mimansa Shekhar | मीमांसा शेखर (@mimansashekhar) August 8, 2023
According to News18, this episode is available on YouTube where we see that Mohan has returned from the US to take Kaveri Amma with him. He meets Geeta, who often engages in fights with him, and falls in love with her. She and Kaveri Amma convince him that the latter’s place is not in the US but in India. Mohan goes back to the US but his heart longs for his roots and hence, he comes back to his motherland.
People online were surprised on learning this trivia. There were also a few who had already seen this episode. Here’s how some of them reacted:
OMG.. this has so many similar frames. Now I remember seeing this. That Kaveri amma got that memory of this episode gushing back. Yes for sure Swades picked up some cinematography from this one. But the story Swades is based on is about a real engineer who joined NASA & returned…
— Shailendra Malik (@eShailendra) August 8, 2023
How??? How did you find this out?? It has an uncanny resemblance to the movie. Just goes on to tell us how much the staging, production and visualization improves the end product!
— Noopur Desai (@noopur_it) August 8, 2023
Yes, sure. When I watched Swades for the first time, I remembered this episode from Yule Love Stories. In addition, there was play to support Narmada Bachao Aandolan (I don’t remember the name) The plot about power generation resembles to that play.
— sayalee paranjape (@saaylee22) August 8, 2023
Wow. Even the heroine’s character looks similar.
— Naman 🇮🇳 (@tohfakaboolhai) August 8, 2023
This is really an awesome find.. The main part is how an actor and direction create a magic and make a master piece 😇
— Naman B Buch (@NNaman710) August 8, 2023
Wonderful, thank you ♥️
Hubahu – scenes, dialogues.
Inspiring validation from AG’s work:
An artist runs for long with their ideas, jab tak tasalli-deh outlet na milay 🌺— Kalamwalibai اکشِتا (@AkshitaNagpal) August 8, 2023
Need to watch this episode ASAP!