Review | 'Bhuj: The Pride of India' revs up hyper-patriotism

Ajay Devgn plays Squadron Leader Vijay Karnik, head of the bombed air base, in 'Bhuj: The Pride of India'. (Image: screen grab)

Google any story on Bhuj during the 1971 war, and it will speak of how 300 women worked night and day for 72 hours and repaired the airstrip at the Bhuj Air Force base to make it usable again. They even covered the repaired airstrip with cow dung so Pakistani air surveillance would be deceived. Know these names: Valbai Seghani, Viru Lachchani, Jadvajibhai Hirani, Hiruben Bhudia, and you will know why there is a Veerangana Smarak, dedicated to the brave women who worked despite the constant threat from Pakistani Sabre jets that had bombed the airstrip already.

What did we get instead? Over the top dialogue about ‘sar zameene Hindustan’, and totally divisive communal dialogue about a Malayali Hindu Nair falling in love with a Muslim woman who was ‘apahij’. If that didn’t put you off, there was the howlarious constant mention of how Indians have ‘1,200 soldiers and Pagi’ not one but many times. So remember to say, ‘And Pagi,’ after every sentence from now on.

Ranchhod Pagi has a wiki page that will make your jaw drop by his sheer bravery. Sanjay Dutt plays this RAW agent who knew the desert by walking across it all his life.

The first few minutes of the film will make you cringe. Thankfully, the action picks up and you see fights of the Indian MIGs and Pakistani Sabre jets. You want to care like you did with Maverick and Iceman in Top Gun, but you’re distracted. They have told you several times that the area around Bhuj is ‘50% sea, and 50% desert’. Then where are these fights happening? What hills are these?

I love how the women who repaired the airstrip have told us via all kinds of interviews that they were advised to wear green clothes so they could hide in case of Pakistani attacks. Here, cinematic liberty has been taken and the women were dressed in red dupattas…

The unintentional funny moments come when there is an air raid siren and the women are supposed to run and hide in the bunkers, that’s when they blow/smash the lanterns. You want to say, 'Kill the floodlights, not the lanterns!’ Then there’s this bizarre connection between the Sardar fighter pilot and the commandant of the Air Force. The boss keeps saying to the pilot, ‘Mere sher ki aankhon mein aansu (tears in my tiger's/brave one's eyes)?’ Before you can say what was that! You realise that the downed pilot emerges from the sea, and then instead of going to the base for a debrief, he goes home! And the commander shows up, and upon seeing the pilot with his daughter just smiles… Then there’s Ajay Devgn’s wife. She has been given no spoken dialogue, but just like her boss husband, she can drive the road roller too. And when you see the last fight, you’ll see how the extras dressed as Pakistani soldiers (armed with knives) hesitate to fight with Pagi, some even fall down without being hit...

I wish they had spent a little more of the budget in learning that a fighter pilot is not someone who flies a transport aircraft. The required skill-sets are totally different. It seems implausible that the sardarji is the only one on site who could fly. And just like that, Ajay Devgn who plays Squadron Leader Vijay Karnik, head of the bombed air base, knows how to use the anti-aircraft gun, drive a road roller as well as a truck for the big transport plane to land on. The final scene is out there with the jeep flying into a helicopter from Magadheera.

Sonakshi Sinha who was so amazing in Akira and Lootera, has been given some ‘nationalistic’ dialogue followed by Ajay Devgn reading out a soldier’s wish which reminds you of really smarmy essays you wrote in school to get a prize on August 15. Sonakshi and her band of drummer ladies (and yes, the boss lady too) fill holes made by the bombs. But this takes a little two-minute montage. It is annoying to see heroes being reduced to a montage when theirs is the story of Bhuj.

One really cool action shot in the film that deserves special attention: Spy Nora Fatehi gets caught and fights with her husband. That entire action sequence is believable and makes you want to ‘whistle podu’...

Ajay Devgn plays the role of squadron leader with an earnestness, but the vapid screenplay which makes him play many, many roles makes the whole thing feel like a sham. Then they add the tanks rolling in and and move their focus to that fight instead of sticking with women fixing the airstrip. I am impressed with the tanks and single-handed hatchet killing by none other than Pagi. But then call the film Bhuj-Jamnagar…

Ajay Devgn claims that women can fix anything from a ‘toota hua button’ to ‘tooti huyi himmat’, then perhaps they should have given such an ‘aurat’ the job of fixing the screenplay. She would get rid of all the offensive Hindu vs Muslim narrative and stick with the real heroes of Bhuj: the women of Madhapur. In the meanwhile, this film is clearly about Bhujingoism.