Bhuj The Pride of India Movie Review: Okay, what is this tarbhooj?

As an Independence Day release, right on the back of Shershaah, on the 1999 Kargil War. I forget for a second, if Independence Day has as much to do with Indo-Pak conflict as it’s a celebration of the end of British rule! 

Bhuj The Pride of India
Dir: Abhishek Dudhaiya
on: Disney+ Hotstar
Cast: Ajay Devgn, Sonakshi Sinha
Rating: 1/5

Oh yeah, let’s start with Yahya. This film does. I mean General Yahya Khan, Pak Prez during 1971 Indo-Pak war. In a half-lit room, sunlight beaming, he’s aghast by the Indian Army taking over what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). How dare they, Yahya yelps: “After all, for 400 years, we ruled them at joote ki nokh (under our boots).” 

Strange, because Pakistan only got created in 1947. Unless of course he means Mughal rule, which is stranger still, for a dictator of Pashtun origin to say! 
His minions nod nonetheless as he orders them to take over West India, so he can clear out the East, with Mrs Indira Gandhi, over tea. Attack, Yahya yells, like Captain Zatak—effectively setting the tone for deliberate mindlessness, minus that Mogambo, to follow.

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Don’t feel tortured. Enough Pakistanis on screen already are—bunch of barbarians basically, indulging in mass self-flagellation and public stoning. Feel a li’l stoned instead. And then the Pak plans will emerge clearer to you.

Which is to isolate the Rann of Kutch, that is half water, half desert, from the Indian mainland—by blowing up bridges that connect to it, and indeed the air-base in Bhuj, where fighter planes could take off from. This is where Squadron Leader Vijay Karnik (Ajay Devgn) comes into the picture—with rockets, bombs raining on his air-base as he navigates all of ’em go-karting in an open jeep. 

Also Read: Ajay Devgn: Stay sane by being disconnected

But of course it’ll take more than a man and much yadida to take on Yahya’s Yodas. The cast of characters is ready, with their own back-story of how they’ve excelled against the enemy. There is Lt. Colonel Nair (Sharad Kelkar), who’s beaten the crap out of a Pakistani boxer before. Pagi, that’s Sanjay Dutt, is a RAW agent, who’s slaughtered five Pak soldiers already—“kaat kar devi maa ko bhenth kar diya”—as an offering to the goddess. 

Pakistan is actually the gift that doesn’t stop giving. Given that there is also a ‘Sehmat’ reprised from Raazi (2018), in the form of Nora Fatehi, who taps precious info from inside a Pak big-wig’s home to pass on to Indians, furtively “praying to Allah for Hindustan.”

Only Devgn’s Vijay feels let down by Pakistanis though. After all, he argues, “We gave them Rs 75 crore [at Partition]—sharaafat ki itni badi keemat kisi desh ne nahin chukayi hogi (no country has paid such price for nobility!)” 

Now they’re lobbing bombs and ammo with that money, see? Please don’t pontificate on that economic point. There’s a better one coming, “Agar Taj Mahal pyar ki nishani hai, toh Hindustan tere baap ki kahaani hai.” If Taj Mahal is symbol of love, then Hindustan is the story of your father. Wut? Don’t know. But jingo. I mean, bingo.

Also Read: From Shershaah to Bhuj: The Pride of India, films to watch this Independence Day

Don’t bang your head against the screen yet. Because none of the above is what this film is about. It is supposed to be on village women around Bhuj who, almost overnight, helped fix craters into runways, of a wholly destroyed air-base, in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Yeah, that’s what I thought too. 

This team is led by a brave woman, referred to as Sherni (tigress). How to establish that? By Sonakshi Sinha’s introduction scene—literally fighting off a tendua (leopard). These character summaries are essential to put you into the mind-space of stirring poetry over pep-talk, over chants, over bhajans... Just so you’re not taken aback, when dhols are brought out, songs start.

Surely the filmmakers know what they’re doing—aiming for desi, credulous masses, through an OTT platform, since theatres during the pandemic is still not an option. This 1971 war-story itself, they’ll have us believe, is only next in line to the submarine operation against INS Ghazi—check out The Ghazi Attack (2017)—and the Battle of Longewala, that was Border (1997).

Imagine spending crores on this planned crappiness though—building massive trenches, ordering tanks, planes, hiring heroes, extras! Hindustan ki kasam—swear on India, and indeed the 1997 Ajay Devgn-starrer of the same name—it takes a special kinda earthy bravado to pull this off in 2021.

That too as an Independence Day release, right on the back of Shershaah, on the 1999 Kargil War. I forget for a second, if Independence Day has as much to do with Indo-Pak conflict as it’s a celebration of the end of British rule! 

Speaking of which, the I-Day 2020 release Gunjan Saxena was a biopic of the Air Force (Kargil) war veteran, which the IAF had several accuracy issues with. I wonder if they’d wanna fact-check this flight of fancy as well, while Devgn zips in a truck for the cargo plane to land right on top of it. Not that they should—I’m just saying!

That if you get past the hardness of this tarbhooj (watermelon) of a war-movie, you could splice several portions into succulent, stand-alone YouTube videos. Unsure if the filmmakers agree? Think Yahya says ya. Start with him! 

Also Read: Sharad Kelkar: Need to keep in mind the uniform's honour

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