Actors: Manoj Bajpai, Juhi Chawla, Siddharth Gupta, Maninder, Neha Pendse
Director: Ganesh Acharya
Rating-**1/2

Choreographer Ganesh Acharya's directorial debut 'Swami' has been promoted as a simple story of a simple man and the very first reel does manage to take the viewer down memory lane to a very 'Malgudi days' kind of setting.

The viewers are introduced to Swami (Manoj Bajpai) a Maharashtrian villager leading a simple life, his beloved South Indian wife Radha (Juhi Chawla) and their bundle of joy, their young son Anand (Siddharth).

The pre interval portion explores the dreams and the aspirations of the couple, their moving to Mumbai city striving for a better life, their wanting to live a dream through their son and ultimately the family's major loss.

It's been said that Ganesh Acharya's has drawn heavily from his real life experiences for the film. Maybe that's the reason why he succeeds in making many sequences in the first half heart warming and sensitive.

Manoj Bajpai and Juhi Chawla who are both natural performers help the proceedings. Juhi handles the dreamy eyed, devoted Radha who underplays her fatal illness well, in the process enabling the director to portray the character as the 'archetypal self sacrificing Indian woman'.

Swami's fascination for rocking chairs is central to the storyline throughout. But the fact that the wife spent all the savings and the hard earned money for her treatment on the rocking chair and Swami being unable to do much about it, is a little farfetched.

Also, it seems the director took his share of cinematic liberties while portraying the lower middle class home in Mumbai.

The biggest revelation is the child artiste Siddharth Gupta who simply weaves magic on screen. He is innocence and cuteness personified and the honest performance of the little boy strikes a chord.

He manages to uplift all the emotional moments and one can't help but reach out for the tissue box on many occasions. Looking at him one can say, acting is indeed in one's blood.

The second half the film is where the director falters and it ends up undoing the build up of the first half. As Swami gets old and Anand grows up, it seems to be a completely different setting with new characters all around.

There is the track involving Anand's marriage to Pooja (Neha Pendse), the birth of their son and Manoj still striving to fulfill his wife's dream. However the developments henceforth don't have the rawness and attraction that the story of Manoj- Juhi – Siddharth had and are not half as interesting.

Even Manoj's character stagnates here. So much so that one tends to feel the absence of Juhi Chawla and Siddharth in this portion.

Too much importance is given to the comic sequences involving Manoj and his senior citizen friends who come to jog in the park, which don't seem essential to the story. There are some scenes like the one involving his grandson playing cricket with his friends in the park and the 'ganpati visarjan' that are too long and dragging.

The main attraction in this half is the able performance by actor Maninder who holds his own in front of the more experienced Manoj Bajpai. Neha Pendse does an average supporting act.

It's the first half that makes 'Swami' and reveals the hitherto unexposed sensitive side of Ganesh Acharya. - - - Sneha Hazarika