{"id":4026,"date":"2016-04-17T18:52:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-17T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4026"},"modified":"2016-04-17T18:52:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T13:22:00","slug":"uri-surgical-strike-tahalka-anil-sharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4026","title":{"rendered":"Before Uri, Bollywood Learnt About Surgical Strikes From a 1992 Anil Sharma Film"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

L<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ong, long time ago in a galaxy far away, before Vicky Kaushal\u2019s <\/span>Uri<\/span><\/i>, there was its twin <\/span>Tahalka <\/span><\/i>directed by Anil Sharma back in 1992. Yep, the same guy who made <\/span>Gadar: Ek Prem Katha<\/span><\/i>. While <\/span>Uri<\/span><\/i> is based on the terrorist attacks at the Uri army base camp in 2016 that led to India\u2019s retaliatory surgical strikes, <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> on the other hand, is inspired from Sharma\u2019s overactive imagination. <\/span>\n\nIn <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i>, Major Krishna Rao (Mukesh \u201cShaktimaan\u201d Khanna), takes a team of covert army operatives to Dongrilla to assassinate its dictator General Dong (Amrish Puri). What is Dongrilla, you ask? Allow me to explain: It\u2019s a fictional country that has frequently attempted to attack India, in vain. After yet another failed attempt to infiltrate India results in the death of 2,000 Dongrilla terrorists, General Dong assassinates General Sinha, the Indian who flushed out the infiltrators. Naturally, India now wants revenge. <\/span>\n\nMajor Rao\u2019s crack team is as deadly as the Hardik Pandya-KL Rahul-Karan Johar combo: It has Naseeruddin Shah, Aditya Pancholi, and Javed Jaffrey, the OG \u201cBoys will be Boys\u201d club. But Force Five, as they are called, has a problem. They have to cross the dreaded Danger Valley to reach Dongrilla. Enter, human IRCTC aka Major Dharam Singh (Dharmendra) whose backstory involves being thrown out of the army because he ignored orders and single-handedly killed thousands of infiltrators. If you think that was melodramatic, wait until you hear about his retired life: He moonlights as a private detective in Bangkok where he works for six months and indulges in \u201caiyashi\u201d for the remaining months. Classic \u201990s Netflix and Chill. <\/span>\n\nSingh however, isn\u2019t that enthusiastic about helping them. But Force Five knows how to cure his reluctance: They inject him with a vital dose of Republic TV emotional nationalism. And from then on, nothing stops them. Once they reach Dongrilla, they are helped by King Cow (Prem Chopra) the leader of the local resistance, and Mrs D\u2019Costa (Sonu Walia) whose husband \u2013 the former intelligence chief \u2013 committed suicide for not being able to infiltrate India. Then there\u2019s Julie (Pallavi Joshi), a Dongrilla double agent who infiltrates Force Five, nearly seduces Naseeruddin Shah, but ultimately gets exposed and is eliminated. It\u2019s really an ensemble like no other. No prizes for guessing that the Force Five eventually manage to kill General Dong and return home triumphantly. <\/span>\n\nJust like <\/span>Uri<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> promoted hyper nationalism and championed the \u201cnew India\u201d which would \u201cghuskega bhi aur maregi bhi\u201d. But even then, it managed to be an enjoyable film because its over-the-top aesthetic guaranteed that any propaganda message it tried espousing promptly got lost.<\/span>\n\n

Tahalka is a true Bollywood miracle and not just another half-baked piece of jingoism.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nTahalka<\/span><\/i> was the kind of film that was more like a one-man army: There was tragedy, comedy, deshbhakti, friendship, sacrifice and to top it all, a villain so ridiculous that you couldn\u2019t help but admire his dedication to villainy. General Dong is probably one of the creepiest and funniest roles that Amrish Puri has essayed: In <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i>, we see him as a dictator who intimidates his victims and enemies in bizarre ways possible (Imagine if <\/span>Mr India\u2019s <\/span><\/i>Mogambo had a few of these traits). Like organising impromptu funeral ceremonies for officers who fail to win him battles and obsessing about Indian music. <\/span>\n\nSimilarly, there\u2019s Major Krishna Rao, who keeps reciting poetry even when he is surrounded by enemies and hopping on one leg. After a point, the film just overlooks its plot and becomes a typical \u201990s product: There are elaborate song and dance routines, random romances, crazy minions of Dong, not so subtle special effects, and continuous hamming. There\u2019s even a song called \u201cGaram Dharam Aj Kaisi Sharam\u201d as a tribute to Dharmendra, probably the best one ever written. It\u2019s basically what makes <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> a true Bollywood miracle and not just another half-baked piece of jingoism.<\/span>\n\nBut what is even more fascinating about <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> is that it\u2019s never one-sided: The heroes and the enemy are on the same footing. It\u2019s admirable considering the film came at a time when the militancy in Kashmir had escalated. But it chose to create a hybrid entity of Dongrilla \u2013 part China, part Pakistan. Instead of outrightly painting Pakistan as the enemy country as some sort of self-celebration. The list will be endless if I start naming Bollywood films that have shown Pakistan as an enemy country. But with Dongrilla, Anil Sharma tried to move away from this trend. Sure, the film claimed that the top brass of the military (alluding to Pakistan\u2019s army which has often been the proxy ruler of the country) don\u2019t want peace with India and support terrorists. But it also showed that there are some traitors in India too. <\/span>\n\nIn the canon of patriotic Bollywood films, <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> is a proper wokeboy, who you can take home to meet your parents. It\u2019s essentially what <\/span>Uri<\/span><\/i> can\u2019t be. And yet in today\u2019s times, <\/span>Tahalka<\/span><\/i> will be relegated as a parody. Even when the film gets Garam Dharam to offer the greatest lesson on successful surgical striking: \u201cIf you want to shoot, shoot. Don\u2019t talk. It\u2019s just a business. Nothing personal.\u201d And that\u2019s a real shame.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before Vicky Kaushal asked, \u201cHow\u2019s the josh?\u201d in Uri, a lesser- known 1992 film introduced Bollywood to surgical strikes. While Uri is based on true events that unfolded in PoK in 2016, Tahalka takes inspiration from its director Anil Sharma\u2019s overactive imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":4027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood"],"yoast_head":"\nBefore Uri, Bollywood Learnt About Surgical Strikes From a 1992 Anil Sharma Film<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Before Vicky Kaushal asked, \u201cHow\u2019s the josh?\u201d in Uri, a lesser- known 1992 film introduced Bollywood to surgical strikes. 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