URI

To Laugh or not to laugh?

In a suburb of Chennai, the audience erupted in approval to the jingoism, It was at times hilarious and at times shocking to hear the loud consistent applause throughout the film. The film ended to a standing ovation

We have seen Hollywood consistently use Cinema as an effective medium for propaganda. 

While the Indian's are getting ready for the elections, the whole world has an opportunity to understand the capability of the strength of  the Indian government, its leaders, India's military capability and their commitment to protect the lives of our countrymen.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to leverage cinema to propagate. But Bollywood which I thought was learning in recent times, seems to never forget its revenge mantra. It looks like the entire objective of a surgical strike, is to settle some personal scores. Forty five years after Zanjeer, Yaadon ki Baraat, and a zillion other revenge drama's, our mental state probably needs a surgical strike!!!

That we decided to showcase our military might, the only notable innovation that is worthy of our military might is a drone built by an intern. All the other R & D work is found to be irrelevant and unusable for the surgical strike.

I understand that drones have been used from 2014, to hit ground targets by US. Naive as it may sound, I am a bit confused if in Sep 2016, if we did not have the capability to build a drone that could travel about 10 kms and detonate a target. Not sure why that it was not an alternative in a surgical strike, given that it was alright for humans to cross the LOC. Strange that we are able to send a mission to mars, but we may not have drones that can perform a surgical strike just a few kilometers across the LOC.

A straight forward plot, completely predictable, with no element of suspense or surprise can make for dull viewing if not for the fascinating audience response that erupted for every Pakistani terrorist that was being killed and the cries of Jai Hind.

The film is dedicated to the New india. The Uri Surgical strike signifies the the New Indian thinking. We shall not be taken for granted. 

But to me, at the end of it all, I was just left wondering, if we were making mountains out of molehills. 

For a propaganda film, with elections in mind, the film could have swayed the minds of Indian voters a bit, but we may have belittled ourselves as a nation, in front of the bigger powers and especially China.