Prahaar : The Final Attack

“क्या इसे हम शांतिकाल कह सकते हैं सर?” (“Can we call it Peace-Time Sir?”)

“सर, पिछले ४३ बरसों में हमने देश की सीमा पर सिर्फ ३ लड़ाईयां लड़ी | और इन ३ लड़ाईयों में वक्त लगा था ३ महीने… सिर्फ ३ महीने! बाकी के ४२ साल और ९ महीनों को हम ‘पीस-टाइम’ कहतें रहें | शांतिकाल. क्या इसे हम शांतिकाल कह सकते हैं सर ?”

(“Sir, in the last 43 years we fought only 3 battles on the border of the country. And these 3 battles took time for 3 months… only 3 months! For the remaining 42 years and 6 months, we have been calling it a ‘Peace-time’. Can we call it Peace-Time sir?”)

Major Chauhan, surely your question turns out to be pretty significant for the current times, we citizens are facing these days. It requires a great potential, emotional balance and logical clarity to put yourself forward with this thought esp. when you are in the exact bracket of judiciary custody.
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Anyone can surely find you as a ‘Dead Protagonist’ who seems less profuse to react physically. But inside that unfeelingness, I have found a dense acquirement of innumerable questions, battles, conflicts, the crisis you have been facing since your childhood.
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A kid somewhat puzzled, who spends his entire day under an old banyan tree sorting out the colossal contrast between the lives of other kids of his age, living around him and somehow struggling to decipher the meaning of the brutal reality he has seen with his innocent eyes. I think he can spend days and nights at the exact place with a wide metallic Mouth-Organ in his hand, with a deficient breath to blow into it and constant dead eyesight filled with an ocean within itself.
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I have firmly found directorial excellence in the film where you were shouting at your assistant for putting a ribbon on your uniform in the wrong place, and suddenly you hear a tuneful melody of a Mouth-Organ playing ‘Dhadkan Zara Ruk Gayi Hain’ (The heartbeat has stopped) with a feeling of emptiness in the player’s soul.
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You get engaged with it and while in search of the player, you get to know that your Two Jokers have given up with their move on the Chess Board in front of them, both sleeping with extreme tiredness. You order them to get aware and go for it with a Check-Mate in just one move. Meanwhile, in the very next room, you find Peter playing his Mouth-Organ. You move towards him and say “Tum nahi shatranj khelte? Khela karo fauji ke liye accha game hain!” (“Don’t you play chess? Do play! It’s good for a soldier.”) on which he calmly replies,

“Har koi har kaam to kar nahi sakta Sir. Aap shatranj khelte hain, main Mouth-Organ bajata hun.”
(“Everyone cannot do everything, sir. You play chess, I play mouth-organ.”)

You just sensibly receive his opinion and move back to the previous room. Mouth-Organ plays in the background and you help those Two Jokers to get over that one move. You affirm, “Shah aur Maat!” (“Check and Mate”). Just before leaving back to your stay, you decide to meet Peter again. You ask for his Mouth-Organ and by diving yourself into your brutal past again you start playing a beautiful tone devotedly. By surprising Peter with your skill, you not even look into his eyes, get outside of his room and again with that dead eyesight, you start walking dim into the midnight. What you have just played starts acquiring the emptiness behind you and that unstructured tune leads to start the prayer

“Hamari Hi Mutthi Mein Aakash Sara, Mutthi Khulegi to Chamkega Tara!” (“The sky is in our fists, if the fist opens, the star will shine!”)

Film : Prahaar : The Final Attack
Dir. : Nana Patekar
In Frame : Nana Patekar | Gautam Joglekar