See a Singh, Salute a Singh

There is a reason behind BORDER being one of my favorite movies, apart from the Guns, Tanks, the Valor, Splendid fight scenes, Sunny Deol  I always thought there is something that sets this movie apart . I must have watched the movie about a 1000 times, and would prefer it over DDLJ, KKHA, 3 Idiots or any other Cult movies people of my generation relish, this was until one day I came across a military tank(U.S made T-59) in the cantonment area about 3 kms from my place. The memorial plate read "Captured by the 23rd Battalion, Punjab Regiment from the pursuing Pakistani Forces at the Battle of Longewala on 8th December, 1971"

I realized to the shock of my life that it was in fact a real story, something like that had actually happened in reality, so i did what every one does out of curiosity, I googled it. The wikipedia page on the Battle of Longewala states Indian strength was 120 soldiers as compared to a Pakistani strength of 2000 soldiers with a backed up tank regiment of 45 tanks and a mobile infantory. Wow! That's a ratio of 17 enemy soldier for every Indian soldier, now this is reality, the movie "300" was a Myth something which may or may not have happened, but this is well documented reality, which was acknowledged by 2 Governments. I had read somewhere once that General Tikka Khan had once stated that "Give us all the Sikh Battalions you have and we will conquer India in 2 days". Now I knew why, 120 soldiers, fighting in a desert against a heavily outnumbered ratio, What would they be thinking? Did they have moments of fear? Did they think for a second what would happen if something happened to them, who would take care of their families?

Our Vedas state "War" brings destruction and should only consorted as the last resort, but War sometimes also gets the best in you, something, some power which one is not aware of, it teaches us to stand for our self , our country, our values, My grandmother has mentioned a story several times that several of our ancestors died saving the life of the 9th Sikh Guru, Guru Tej Bahadur(I don't claim any authenticity over it).

Just like the movie, Major Kuldeep Singh Chandpuri led the charge of 120 Men at Longewal, the attackers indeed had the same plan of "have breakfast at Longewala, lunch at Jaisalmer and dinner at Jodhpur", poor thing they had to run after the breakfast. Another similar aspect was the fact that Lieutenant Dharamveer with 20 soldiers was sent to monitor the enemy party, a job well done. Another similar account was the fact that the Indian Army did layout anti-tank mines intelligently to counter the invasion, it took the Pakistani Army 2 hours to realize that the mines were only superficial and very few in number. 

The Best part of the movie i liked was the confrontation between Major Kuldeep Singh and the opposition party led by Ghulam Dastagir(AKA Lahore da Mashoor Gunda), who asks him to surrender right away or keep the holy priest on standby so that he can perform his last rights. Major Kuldeep Singh replies back by calling him a filthy animal and by stating that only time has the right answer whether his last Ardas would be read or Ghulam Dastagir's inn all illah (Muslim Prayer) would be offered. In reality the attack occurred at 12:30 AM, killing 5 camels and was responded with Pakistan loosing 3 of its American sponsored tanks, Indians were smart enough to use this opportunity to attack the opposing army aiming by the light from the fire and  creating chaos due to the smoke from the fire.


By noon the next day, the assault ended completely, having cost Pakistan 22 tanks, claimed destroyed by aircraft fire, 12 by ground anti-tank fire, and some captured after being abandoned, with a total of 100 vehicles claimed to have been destroyed or damaged in the desert around the post. Now That was a Smart sweep indeed! Indian army lost 2 soldiers, one of them died while planting the land mines. Pakistani army lost 200 soldiers and in the next 8 days half its territory.

All in all, this small battle teaches us a lesson, a lesson that teaches us what Sunny Deol claims as a thin line between Love for the Nation(Watan-Parsati) and Craziness while he stands on the LOC. Most of us life a simple life which is confined to parents, friends, career, life partner, booze, money but life is so much beyond these confined limits, Life is about getting the "High", Sunny deol gets on standing alone at the border and coming back alive.