|
By Our Correspondent Š2003 Bollyvista.com |
I will never make another war film. I remember saying that at a public function, sometime after my film 'Border'. War is ugly. People make supreme sacrifices. People die. It is a dilemma for a film-maker to use their stories on commercial basis. And yet, here I am with my second film on war. 'LOC-Kargil'.
Why did I make the film? There is no single, straight answer. Instead, there are several incidents and events like independent, unconnected scenes of a film. It is only when you string them together; you realize there is a connection. And when I look back, I realize that the connection was always driven by emotion, and very often, personal.
If I remember correctly, it all started off with anger. Our Prime Minister had shaken hands, as an overture of peace, with our neighbors. So, the attack at Kargil was like a stab in the back. Like most Indians, I was disturbed, affected.
Some time later, I was at a film function organized to felicitate our war heroes. I was standing in a line behind other film dignitaries, waiting my turn to meet our jawans. They were on crutches, others in wheelchairs, some did not have arms. I noticed that they were craning their necks, bending this way and that to catch my eye, they were smiling at me. When it was finally my turn to meet them, they surrounded me and said, "Thank you, sir, for making 'Border'. It was an inspiration for us."
I was stunned, overwhelmed. Instead of me saying, thank you! to them for keeping my tomorrows safe, they were saying, Thank You! to me! That is an incident that will never leave me.
I began to realize that, as a film-maker, I had a bigger role to play. I always knew this, of course, and as a student of cinema, I had always believed that it is a film-maker's job to reflect his times. But for the first time, I was experiencing the results. it was growing on me.... that a story had to be told. Before we forget.....
Then, other facts of Kargil war came my way. A massive force of 45,000 troops was deployed to fight in the highest battlefield in the world. When initial reports came in, they spoke of only 100 intruders. After many revisions, the number was increased to 3000. The number of strike missions undertaken by the Indian Air Force during 'Operation Vijay' was 550. These numbers were startling.
Also startling was the fact that this was the only war where more officers were killed than jawans. The average age of an officer was 19 to 21 years. And the average service record was one to one-and-a-half years. They had died even before their life had begun.
What was frustrating was that they had stood no chance. The enemy had chosen the place and the time. They were up there on the mountains, shooting down at our boys, picking them off like sitting ducks. And yet, in the face of certain death, our boys forged ahead, eventually driving the transgressors away.
What was astonishing and must be told, what is truly heroic about our boys is that they fought fairly. Yes, fairly. The enemy had already breached the rules of peace. If our army, too, had crossed the L.O.C., they might have finished the war in 7 days flat. Our boys were angry, they were seething, but they showed tremendous restraint. They did not cross the L.O.C., no matter the provocation, the agony, and the frustration of seeing their comrades dying around them. And so a 7-day war took 80 days to finish, took so many more lives than was actually necessary. In not crossing the L.O.C., and playing by the book, INDIA WON THE WORLD'S RESPECT AS THE WRONGED PARTY. The story had to be told. Before we forget......
The reason I did another war film? The real clincher was when I started to research for the film, and met the families of the dead soldiers. In their eyes, I could see the hope that I would immortalize their sons through cinema. I only hope that I have achieved that in some measure.
|
SEARCH
