Ashutosh Gowarikar isn't worried over "Swades" not drawing in the crowds. "Such films do need more time to develop," says the director whose latest offering addresses problems such as rural poverty and illiteracy.

Gowarikar denies having used Shah Rukh Khan as a "ploy to get in the audience" for "Swades", one of the most socially relevant commercial Hindi films to have emerged in the last decade.

"I wanted the audience to share my social consciousness," tells Gowarikar in an interview.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: "Swades" hasn't opened that well.
A: The film hasn't yet got the audience it is meant to. The fact that it's a little different and even the promotional clippings suggested nothing else could've something to do with this. Yes, the film is a little bit slow paced. That's because the dramatic thrust has a lot of gravity in it.

Such films do need more time to develop. We need the audience to accept the languorous pace. In today's times films are paced like the Frontier Mail. I want audiences to watch "Swades" more compassionately than the usual and go beyond the pace.

Q: "Swades" is being seen as a propagandist cinema.
A: Propaganda is generally associated with political parties. I wouldn't like to see the ideas in "Swades" as propagandist. But it definitely projects nationalism. It begins as a story of an individual's growing consciousness and then gets more societal.

Q: Problems like drinking water and enough food below the poverty line are alien to metropolitan audiences. Is that why you brought in Shah Rukh Khan?
A: I never thought of him as a ploy to get in audiences. In fact I never got into a particular audience profile, tailoring my script accordingly. I wanted the audience to share my social consciousness. Even I've thought in the past, 'Iss desh ka kuch nahin ho sakta' (This country is beyond redemption!).

We need to break away from such cynicism. Thoughts on the decline in moral and living standards in our country were with me from before the time I wrote "Lagaan". In fact I started writing "Swades" at the same time. To get into something as realistic as "Swades" I needed to do extensive research. And I didn't want a research panel to do it for me. I preferred to do my own research. I discovered things about our country that I wasn't aware of earlier.

Q: So like your protagonist Mohan Bhargava you too went through a process of self-discovery?
A: Yes. And the poverty that I discovered isn't restricted to rural India. Even at the traffic signal in the city when a child comes with outstretched hands, it's an image that affects your conscience if you allow it to. We should stop believing that a change in the social order is someone else's problem.

Q: The film gets progressively polemical in tone?
A: The era of looking back in anger at social problems is over. We need to look back emotionally. That's the need of the hour. That's what "Swades" does. There's mass scale migration from the villages to cities and from cities to abroad. We say that's because there're no job opportunities. But these opportunities need to be created.

In "Swades" I wanted all of us to revisit old-world values. So no... I'm not preaching. I'm reminding you of what we've lost. I want the audiences' conscience to be pricked.

Q: "Swades" harks back to Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zameen".
A: I'm deeply moved by the cinema of the 1950s, be it Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy or V. Shantaram. They made films about the grass roots when our society was optimistic. Today there's complete despair. But we need to regain our positive outlook. It might take us another 50 years to regain our optimism.

But let's start somewhere. Every time I leave the theatre after a movie, there're questions in my mind. I don't want questions any longer. Let's have some solutions. Each one of us is an expert on the problems faced by our country. But where are the solutions? To me the country's main issue should be education. And it should be pushed as hard as possible.

Q: Why Shah Rukh?
A: I needed someone who isn't cynical and yet when he thinks the West is where the action is... contrasting qualities rolled into one. I needed an actor with an unpredictable quality about him. Shah Rukh has it. That Shah Rukh Khan could ride a train, bus or boat as he does in "Swades" is unheard of. People said: how could I make him do all this? But Shah Rukh is basically from the grass roots. Thanks to his screen image, he could look an outsider in the situations given in my film. I needed that look. Shah Rukh could be the outsider looking into social issues with a sense of dismay and wonderment.

And I had hoped his angst would affect the audience. All this wasn't done to be clever as a filmmaker. Shah Rukh and I bonded so well we never realised when the film started. We had done three films together as actors. In "Swades" we had a ball together. Neither of us was trying to impress the other. I had a script reading with him before shooting. He had never done that before in a movie. But because of the preparation no actor looks in awe of Shah Rukh in screen.

Q: Did you make a concerted effort to cast untried faces?
A: Absolutely. It was about the protagonist coming into a new world. So everyone had to be new. The leading lady Gayatri Joshi... I met her at a party. I needed an intelligent city girl.

Q: Will "Swades" make as much difference as "Lagaan"?
A: Before making a difference it will have to find acceptance. I haven't done anything for effect in "Swades". "Lagaan" was a formula film. "Swades" flies at one altitude. That's tough to do. I hope "Swades" will get an audience in rural areas.

I've kept the narrative deliberately simplistic. I see "Swades" as more than a film. For me entertainment ends in the theatre. Then there's the carry-home. I want that aspect to be strong. "Swades" cost more than 200 million rupees ($4.5 million). I could've made it in Rs.60 million. But then the mountains and the boat ride would have been shot in Film City in Mumbai. NASA would've been an office in Nariman Point in Mumbai. Let's see how it goes. I haven't made it for money. But the distributors should get back their money.

Q: What next?
A: I've got two scripts ready. I'm going to announce it within the next three days. It won't be a rural film. And, yes, it will have established stars.