"HOW'S THE JOSH?"... "HIGH SIR"

I wasn’t aware of the phrase, ‘How’s the josh?” and its response, “High Sir” till I read about it on the newspapers. Apparently, our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, had used this while addressing a Bollywood event in Mumbai.

Last evening, my wife and I decided to watch ‘Uri – The Surgical Strike’, finally. I said ‘Finally’, because, we were a bit apprehensive about any political overtures… The movie was released on the same day as ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ was released and there was so much noise about the latter. But, when we heard from every source that ‘Uri’ was a brilliant movie, we wanted to watch it. In the end, PM’s josh did it… He, literally, pushed us to the cinema hall!

‘Uri’ is an action movie, a war movie. As movie buffs, most of us grew on the bollywood or regional flicks, which had the revenge story in them… Yes, ‘Badla’… “Tera ghar me ghus ke marunga tuje’… ‘Khoon ka badla khoon se’… and all that. There is a child in all of us, and, no matter how old we have grown, and how mature - if we like to call ourselves so -  there, deep in our bosoms, we all are still kids… We like dishkum… dishkum, and bomb-bomb-blast! And, above all, we Indians, are highly emotional… we like to cry in the darkness of the cinema halls… ‘Uri’ has a mega dose of high-voltage action and a fairly-large emotional dose, too. Yes, we liked the movie, even though we knew the Surgical Strike story… and, even though, at some places, we felt things were too fictionalized or dramatized.

Not to take away the respect and honour of the valiant life our armed forces lead, particularly at the border and during the times of high tension and war. The movie or no movie… the plight of the soldiers is just incomprehensible for most of us. To comprehend it, we need to put ourselves in their shoes or their immediate family members’… the wives, children, parents and siblings. ‘Uri’ takes us to that space and makes us feel the pain from there!

As a revenge story, ‘Uri’ succeeds in winning our hearts. Our hearts beat for our nation… “How’s is the Josh?” “High Sir”… “How’s the josh?” “High Sir”… “Jai Hind” “Jai Hind”… Our blood boils… Yes, it does.

But then, our problems – the problems of our nation or problems of our world – will not and cannot be solved through surgical strikes and wars. Wars beget wars… Bloodshed begets more bloodshed. Kashmir continues to be a deep-bleeding wound… And, the solution, somehow, does not seem to come through guns, bombs and missiles…

Yesterday, in the cinema hall, the entire row in front of us had at least fifteen to twenty people from one family… the grandparents, parents and little school-going children. Three boys – aged around 10-12 – were fired-up… full of josh. One of them was wearing a military-styled outfit… He was the Captain… When the movie ended and lights came on, here the movie started… Dishkum… Dishkum… Bomb-bomb-blast… All guns and missiles were blazing… The kids were uncontrollable, entertaining… “How’s the Josh?” I asked one of them, “Hi Sir”… And, the josh did not show any sign of getting diminished till we got down to the ground floor and finally parted our ways… The firing was still on… The guns were still blazing… The high josh, I say!

There is a kid in all of us, Sir… And, we all love guns and roses!

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: NDTV.com

Video:Impulse Production India/YouTube