120 Bahadur

It was 120 against 3000, and on that fateful November day in 1962, the one hundred and twenty Indian soldiers led by Major Shaitan Singh Bhati kept the much larger Chinese contingent at bay, giving up their lives to save the crucial Chushul valley in Ladakh. It came to be known as the Battle of Rezang La, and in the continuous onslaught of the Chinese army, only six soldiers of the Charlie Company, 13 Kumaon Regiment, almost all of them Ahirs, survived. Farhan Akhtar plays Bhati with brio, leading his men into a ‘jung’ from where there was no coming back, and the result is a war film which brims with the action-and-emotion necessary for a Bollywood drama, but refuses to go under because of it.

In Hindi cinema, foreshadowing has somehow become a go-to formula for a war film. In 120 Bahadur, the latest in Bollywood’s canon of real-to-reel combat cinema, the signs are all there very early on — a promise to return made to a beloved, a son imagining the happy times he will get to spend with his parents again, a father writing a letter to his young son from a zone of strife, with special emphasis on words like ‘saahas’ (courage) and ‘balidaan’ (sacrifice). When our leading man — Farhan Akhtar’s braveheart Shaitan Singh Bhati — is asked to cut short his leave and called back to duty ahead of the festive season, he tells his wife: “Agle saal Diwali aise manayenge ki iss saal ki kasar poori ho jaaye”. It is such a predictable route to take that one knows he will never make it back.

Much like our political leadership, Bollywood largely remains silent on our battles and skirmishes with our northern neighbour. This week is a glorious exception, as director Razneesh Razy Ghai brings a tale of valour from the Chinese front as he makes us relive the battle of Rezang La, where 120 Indian bravehearts from the plains thwarted the dragon’s designs on Chushul Airfield to occupy the entire Ladakh during the Sino-Indian war on November 21, 1962.

Director Razneesh “Razy” Ghai revisits a painful yet remarkable chapter of Indian military history that has rarely been explored on screen. Barring Chetan Anand’s Haqeeqat (1964), with its unforgettable anthem “Kar Chale Hum Fida”, Bollywood has curiously stayed away from this story. These unsung heroes deserved a film dedicated solely to them — and Ghai, to his credit, remains committed to that intent.