Nepal, July 4 -- I watched Lagaan again, not on a laptop, but in a cinema hall, with my 17-year-old son Ashvin sitting beside me. The immediate provocation came from my friend Suhasini Mulay, who played Yashodamai, Bhuvan's mother, in the film. Suhasini asked me to take Ashvin to watch the film on a large screen, as it completed 25 years. I took that suggestion seriously.

That suggestion also carried a political memory for me. Suhasini is not only an actor from many much-loved films or serials but a public intellectual who has stood by minority rights, feminist positions and unpopular democratic causes when many others found silence more convenient. That mattered to me while watching Lagaan again, because the film itself is not merely ab...