It has broken all conventions of commercial cinema and created new frontiers for the stagnant Hindi film industry.

Throughout the making of this period epic, it's reclusive director Ashutosh Gowarikar chose to remain in the shadows, letting the high-profile star-producer Aamir Khan take the front seat. Now, the soft-spoken and shy filmmaker seems somewhat dazed but relieved and happy.

"We all hoped Lagaan would be appreciated by the audience. But we never dreamt the film would be so widely appreciated," says Gowarikar. Cautious about discussing the magnitude of its success, the young director gratefully takes the barrage of congratulatory calls at his residence in Bandra where he lives with his parents, wife and two sons. Colleagues have been effusive about Lagaan, and that pleases him.

There's a feeling of subtle joy in the Gowarikar household, as though the filmmaker's sudden elevation from a struggler with two flop directorial ventures behind him to a superstar-director is a part of the karmic cycle. Says Gowarikar: "I've known the downside for five years, so I'm not swayed by success. But I must admit the response to Lagaan is overwhelming.
Everyone from the age of 70 to seven loves it. Youngsters come out of the theatre and go right back in for the next show."

Gowarikar, who started his career as an actor in Ketan Mehta's experimental film Holi alongside Aamir Khan, directed his first film Pehla Nasha in 1993, when his career as an actor seemed to be going nowhere. The film flopped, as did Gowarikar's next directorial venture Baazi, a slick action movie which purported to change leading man Aamir Khan's image. Gowarikar has had no formal training as a director nor has he served an apprenticeship under any established director. He says he learnt direction while acting, by observing directors at work.

The script for Lagaan entailed rigorous research of British India. The film came about from a desire to depict a conventional conflict between the haves and have-nots without going into cliched areas of mainstream Hindi cinema. Though Lagaan was set in British India, the director wanted to avoid any reference to the Indian freedom movement. Gowarikar says he wanted to sell a simple idea to the audience. "Where there's a will, there's a way. Lagaan is about the triumph of the human spirit." Single-handedly, Gowarikar has changed the rules of commercial filmmaking in Mumbai. As the admiring fellow-director Ram Gopal Varma says: "Who would have thought that a film set a hundred years ago about a group of villagers playing cricket with the British would be such a massive success?"

The full impact of Lagaan is yet to sink into Gowarikar. Too dazed by its unexpected success, he says he has a couple of ideas for his next film. Asked if Aamir Khan would star in his next venture, he replied: "That would depend entirely on how suited I think him to be for the character in my script and how excited Aamir is by the prospect of playing that character."