Ashok R Gowariker, director Ashutosh Gowariker's father, is extremely disappointed.

He said his son had called him as soon as the function was over and promised to call later. "He told me and my wife not to take the loss to heart," he said.

Ashutosh had worked hard for Lagaan, which lost out to Bosnia's No Man's Land in the Best Foreign Film category. Even an Oscar nomination was as good as victory," he added.

Gowariker said the Lagaan team members had visited him at his residence after the awards function telecast was over. Everybody had pinned so much hope on the film that disappointment was writ large on their faces, he said.

Noted playback singer Mahendra Kapoor also expressed disappointment that Lagaan was not selected. ''Anyway, Aamir tried his best and succeeded in putting the Indian mainstream cinema across to the Hollywood.''

Though the award eluded India, there was little doubt that Lagaan had made it to the top three. The other two were No Man's Land and the French Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

The other two contenders -- Argentinean Son Of The Bride, directed by Juan José Campanella, and the Norwegian Elling, directed by Petter Naess, were not being listed among the favourites either by the critics or the bigwigs of the Academy.

Uday Kaushish of Eurasia Visuals, which had released the film in parts of north India, said the failure to get the award notwithstanding, it was clear that the Indian sensibility had been recognised at a global level with the attention given to the film. That the sequence screened at the award ceremony was the popular song O ri chhori (composed by A R Rahman) also showed that the Indian style of filmmaking had been recognised.

Lagaan had put Indian cinema on the world map like no other film before it, appealing to people even other than the Indian diaspora. Uday admitted that marketing and lobbying have a major role to play in the Academy.

A disappointed senior film critic Aruna Vasudev said there was little doubt that the Bosnian film that had treated the subject of the birth of a new country in an extraordinary manner was brilliant.

She said there was also little doubt that the Academy awards were not impartial and had a lot to do with lobbying. The Bosnian film -- which has already won the 59th Golden Globe Award -- was being promoted in the United States during the last six months.

UNI