An Ode to the Kashmir Saga of Indian Soldier

Reviewing the movie ‘Amaran’

For a country that has become insensitive to the daily deaths of uniformed men in Kashmir, India needed a reminder of the trials and tribulations of our troops and the sacrifices they make to integrate this troubled part of hers to the national mainstream. That is what exactly the recently released Tamil movie ‘Amaran’ – The Immortal – does. A biopic based on the life and times of Major Mukund Varadarajan, who made the supreme sacrifice during counterterrorism operations in Kashmir in April 2014 and was awarded Ashok Chakra, the country’s highest peacetime gallantry award, it is produced by Rajkamal Films International with Sony Pictures Films India and is directed by Rajkumar Periasamy. The movie stands out for avoiding jingoism, a perennial affliction that mars every Indian war movie of recent times. Instead, it focusses on the humane aspects of a soldier’s life and his professional challenges. Remarkably, the movie has also succeeded in throwing some light on the dreadful dilemma the hapless civilians of Kashmir are caught up in.

The leading pair, Sivakarthikeyan, as Mukund Varadarajan, and Sai Pallavi, as Indhu Rebecca Varghese, his college sweetheart and later wife and mother of their only child, put up a stellar performance, stirring emotional stimuli. The storyline ingeniously presented as Indhu’s reminiscence, harmonizing the eternal love of the couple with the vastness of the ocean and the sky above, while Mukund’s immersed ashes outspread across the sea, is profoundly poetic. The challenges the couple faces in their love life in the backdrop of belonging to different cultures and faiths and eventual reconciliations that lead to a happy married life are all portrayed with absolute realism. An outstanding feature of the movie is that it tells a beautiful love story without outlandish exhibitionism that often characterizes Indian movies of that genre. Even the family scenes of the couple with a child have a sublime touch to them.

Language can be a major challenge when bringing out a movie in Tamil while presenting an army unit where the popular lingua franca is Hindi. It has been skillfully and splendidly overcome, partly for the advantage of the unit in question, 44 Rashtriya Rifles (wherein Mukund, who belonged to 22 Rajput, was on deputation), having had a composition of troops from all over India, like all RR units. Deftly combining different lingos with subtitles added, the script and dialogue writers have made it an easy-to-follow movie for audience across the country. In fact, it is more of a multi-lingual film than a Tamil one.

The military scenes have been presented with a lot of authenticity. The Passing Out Parade of the Officers Training Academy has been captured inspiringly in all its splendour. The daily grind of troops fighting insurgency is vividly depicted and action sequences are composed with an air of professionalism, leaving out hero-centric machoism, another bane of Indian war movies. The demon-like grip of the terrorist leaders over the populace and the utter despair of the security forces during their hot pursuit of these villains when they run into barricades of stone pelting youngsters bring forth the stark reality of Kashmir insurgency, the country at large is only vaguely aware of. In fact, the stone pelting scenes make for macabre scenes seldom presented on screen. And the dilemma of the security forces under restraint to use force against no one except terrorists highlights the thankless plight of the security forces.

The only discordant note, barely discernable though, was the officer-troops interactions, which sounded a tad too loud. Maybe, some such cinematographic liberties could not be avoided for mass appeal. A smaller anomaly was Mukund being allotted a service number with the prefix of IC. Factually, the service number of an officer is prefixed SS (for Short Service) while passing out of OTA and he gets another one later when he gets a permanent commission, prefixed IC (for Indian Commission). Notwithstanding these minor pitfalls that can be easily overlooked, the movie is superbly crafted.

Mukund Varadarajan’s life was a gallant soldier’s tale intertwined with a poignant love story. The movie has brilliantly recreated it to carve a niche for itself as a classic on Indian screen. Kudos to the creators of this lovely piece of art.