Siachen - Two bald men fighting over a comb

Bull's Eye July 2009

I was at the movies yesterday.  The national anthem, now mandatorily shown in Mumbai, version with Siachen as the background is not only breathtaking but a hair raising experience for me every single time I see it. I can literally feel the chilled snowy breeze right in to my face when I stand in respect of the tricolour and one cannot help respect our brave soldiers and officers who fortify and defend the highest altitude war theatre anywhere in the world.  Siachen, which incidentally means Wild Rose or Black Rose, is acknowledged for its ferocious clime with extreme temperatures reaching - 40 deg Celsius and blizzard speeds reckoned to be at 300 km an hour - twice as fast as a Shoaib  Akhtar delivery, never mind that the soldier is perched on a slippery and unfriendly terrain glacier. It has been estimated that the Indian army spends in excess of Rs 5 crores per day in defending Siachen Glacier, an uninhabitable geography of approximate 75 kilometers at a height of 5752 metres. Our nation ends up spending close to Rs 2000 crores a year while scores of our jawans spend their lives in protecting this border, where living conditions are probably the harshest and most inhuman and the air is thin and scarce. The Siachen situation is akin to the struggle of two bald men fighting over a comb. I earnestly hope that politicians on both sides of the border, get some sense and put a stop to this nonsensical display of national pride and save valued human lives on both sides of the border over uninhabitable land. We rather have this kind of money well spent on primary health care and public welfare than engage in futility and also damaging the fragile environment of the Himalayan glacier. Back to the movies. I am a movie buff or was at least one till a few years ago and am amazed at the variety of movies available nowadays on the platter. More on variety later, the entire entertainment industry has seen a huge metamorphosis from my earlier movie watching days. Movies today have a short shelf life; in fact they have a very short life - maybe a week or maximum two. Most big budget movies release over 1000 to 1500 prints over the weekend and know their financial fate within two weeks of the release date. Gone are the days when one used to hear of movies having completed 100 days and silver or golden jubilee are phrases that now adorn the Bollywood lexicon museum. Like I cannot remember the names of cricketers in our test team, one day team, T20 teams, I can hardly remember or recognise the number of movie actors proliferating nowadays. Movie viewing though, has become a huge pleasure experience starting with internet enabled ticket booking and also their home delivery. I remember the days as a teenager, trying to cut a deal with typical handkerchief on the collar black marketer, trying to squeeze a better price for the recently released Big B flick. Also, no stepping on each other’s toes during the intermission, you have popcorn and drinks delivered at your seat. Some of the fancier upper class seats are like an airline first class travel experience with fully recliner seats and laundered blankets to match with. On the variety part, since we have a huge clamouring audience in the country the present multiplex culture allows small film makers with the actual hat ke stories to say and weave their visual tapestry. So we have kids movies, sports movies, chick flicks, inane comedies and the odd stories all nudging shoulders and vying for audience attention and eyeballs every Friday. While I love the new genre of movies, I sometimes miss the story plots Bollywood was always known for -Rich boy meet poor girl -opposing parents (or vice-versa), incessantly smoking villain with tight fitting clothes with optional silver wig and voluptuous blonde moll with glass of wine in her hand, the badla theme and the see through disguises in the climax at the villain's den over a song or qawalli with the family reunion at the end and not to forget the pot bellied cops making their entry in the last reel of the movie and the familiar dialogues for every situation. Like they say - Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.