Mohan Bhargava is real

So here's the real story behind the character Mohan from Swades[Link]; provided you haven't heard it already. I haven't investigated enough, but Gowariker (director) himself talks a lot on when he first started thinking about the Swades plot. Surprisingly, I haven't read him directly crediting the idea of the story to a rediff reporter although the rest of the account that I mention below is definitely in black and white.

Here's an excerpt from the article that reporter D'Souza wrote in the fall of 2000:

Her name is Khatri Vasave. She lives in a tiny village called Domkhedi, on the banks of the Narmada river in northern Maharashtra. The young man's name is Anil Kumar. He is from Pathanpara in Kannur District, Kerala. After a few weeks here, he is returning to his home. In those weeks, Khatri has grown very fond of this tall engineer from Kerala. And that fondness has its roots, I suspect, in a single bulb. Read complete article. [Link]

The connection was first reported by rediff as soon as buzz started:

Swades: The rediff connection
rediff Entertainment Bureau December 15, 2004 11:31 IST

- Go to http://www.swades.com/
- Click on Enter HTML Site.
- Click on Acknowledgements at the bottom right of the screen that comes up.
- You see rediff.com columnist Dilip D'Souza, right?

Explanation:
The director, Ashutosh Gowariker, says Dilip, got the idea for the film from a column Dilip did for rediff.com about two young engineers from Kerala who built a dam in rural Maharashtra and supplied electricity where there was none. That is what Swades is about. Says Dilip, "I had no idea about all this till about a month ago, when the person who told him (Ashutosh) about my article, a journalist friend called Rajni Bakshi, told me she had told him."

What does he think of Swades?
"Go see the film," says Dilip. "It's really very good, I think, better than Lagaan. Puts out some fine messages, does it subtly, Shah Rukh Khan is understated, there are no idiotic choreographed dance sequences, no fights."

"I don't know if you would also like to mention," adds Dilip, "that my articles about these two guys was used to nominate them for the MIT technovators prize last year, which they actually won (see the third entry here- Link).