When Ashutosh Gowariker and Aamir Khan decided to cast their film Lagaan, they were sure that they wanted capable actors who would form a strong ensemble. Lagaan, released in 2001, was the story of a village that fought against the British via a cricket match and every significant part in the film required a strong actor. The casting process was done solely on the basis of the acting skills but when they got on set and had to shoot their first song, ‘Ghanan Ghanan’, they hit their first roadblock.
Most actors in the film, like Yashpal Sharma, Raghubir Yadav, Akhilendra Mishra, Rajesh Vivek, Daya Shankar Pandey, Rajendra Gupta, were strong performers but they did not have much experience with lip-syncing and choreographed dancing, which was essential for this song. Except for Aamir, no actor had done lip-sync songs before this. The song appears in the film in the first act as the villagers are prematurely welcoming the monsoons. After many takes, Ashutosh realised that remembering the dance steps, co-ordinating them with the rest of the cast and lip-syncing, all at the same time was proving to be tougher for the cast than he imagined, so he came up with a solution.
In the documentary Madness in the Desert, Ashutosh shared, “So, we were shooting take after take after take. It was endless. I decided that something had to be done. So, that night after dinner, I called all the actors down to the dining hall and I asked them to sing the songs loudly.” Lagaan was shot in one schedule and all the cast and crew members of the film were staying in the same apartment complex in Bhuj. The apartments were built by the team of the film as there were no hotels nearby where the cast could stay.
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As Ashutosh rehearsed with the cast and they sang their parts loudly, without any hesitation, he realised that this would work. In a new video shared by Aamir Khan Productions, the actors can be seen rehearsing the lines as they sing them one by one. Aamir Khan is the one who ends up fumbling and can be seen making a face. “The actors’ confidence level grew. The attention was now off the lyrics but into the dancing steps,” he said. Aamir also liked Ashutosh’s technique and shared, “This exercise Ashu did really worked wonders because then they were singing it freely and with the same excitement with which ‘Ghanan’ was meant to be sung.”
Lagaan released in 2001 and was nominated at the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
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