How Border made me discover my interest of military hardware and tactics

People learn a lot from movies and one Bollywood movie actually showed me the way I was looking for and started an interest into something which I do even today.

Year 1997, a Bollywood movie, a geographical place made famous in just three hours, a tale of heroism against all odds (not taking into consideration the various controversies around) - the 1971 war in the Battle of “Longewala”… Yes that’s Border. The blockbuster which put 120 Indian soldiers against tank regiment of 45 tanks and 2000+ soldiers heroism on the celluloid screen. Now if you’re wondering that how does one movie start an interest area, here it is.

I cannot help you Major, यहाँ सिर्फ Hunter जहाज़ हैं जो रात को नहीं लड़ सकते. I`ll be there with the 1st light of the morning.

There’s was one epic line by Jackie Shroff in the 45 minute important battle scene in the movie which started very basic question the moment the assault on the screen started…Why couldn’t the hunters fight at night?? That time there was no wikipedia, no YouTube or anything which could answer my questions. Hell..It was probably the first and only war movie I had actually seen since growing up. The only memory I have of actual war is probably the BBC coverage of the Gulf War of 1991 . So for me everything I saw in border was THE thing which mesmerized me beyond anything. Somewhere around the line found my calling of interests in military hardware but I could not put a name to it even though could pinpoint it that yes, I liked this thing. In 2002, in the final year of high school, cable TV at that time was quite common and Star movies was the key to all action. Would you believe that till then I had realised that I love everything air force but still hadn’t watched the must see movies like Top gun or Vijeta?

At the same time I got my first PC and in that era I realised that there are things called computer games which actually have a genre known as combat flight simulators. In 2001 the Owen Wilson starring Behind enemy lines released which actually gave me a very good look into the working and systems of F-18 Hornet. That was my Pandora’s box…. This was what I was waiting for. By luck just two months after I saw that movie, Star movies showed Top gun and at that night my sleep vanished. This was what I had been searching all those years, a movie which showcased fighter jet instruments, dogfighting and everything associated with jets to the limit. I was so engrossed that I saw that movie numerous times until each and every scene became etched permanently into the memory. In between I also played PC games and that actually helped me get the answer to my border question, “Why no night flying”? Some of the adversary fighter jets in the game had almost no modern systems, they were not real-time in terms of instrumentation so things would show up on the screen seconds later after it had been initiated. That was when jackpot answer as to why no night flying in the 71 war meant that the jets were not capable in terms of instrumentation, avionics and other things to do a night support mission as shown in the movie.

A closer look at the Hindi movie Vijeta brought me closer to the fighter jets of the 1980s used by the Indian air force. These are really vintage when you compare it with the modern jets of today. By then my interest had really settled permanently into the world of military hardware and tactics. An in-depth working of the systems was provided by English novel writers like Joe Webber and other authors like him where there were absolute details about dogfights, tactics, missions to the very grittiest of details in their stories. Continuing this forward coupled with my curiosity of the why of things, I delved down into the Indian wars of 65, 71, 99 and believe me I have discovered heroes in the Indian Armed Forces who have defied odds in the face of imminent danger and displayed acts of valor and supreme sacrifice.

Many of my friends and people ask me that how do I have this must knowledge of everything military and here is your answer- Border. Had it not been that movie I would have never discovered  the question of why Indian jets could not help at night and never would have subsequently ventured out for the answers of the various following questions. 

Border made me discover Behind enemy lines which discovered Top gun which discovered Vijeta , U 571, Crimson tide and a lot more movies. For a lot of serving Indian soldiers border was the movie which made them join the Indian Army and fight in Kargil just like Top gun had done the same for the US air force in 1986.

Ragging - My #metoo moment years back

This is my story in the world of ragging and how it destroyed my confidence, social interaction for the years to come. Don’t compare it with the ragging of engineering colleges. This is 2007, more than 11 years back, the time when anti-ragging was unheard of. I was pursuing my MBA. The starting 2 days were quite good, nice interaction between students, seniors. I was a hostelier. All things ended on the 3rd day when before the program officially ended, we were dictated the basic details of seniors which were supposed to be mugged up in double quick time. I had issues with mugging up details of 100+ seniors which included both locals and hosteliers. There were camps- locals and hosteilers. So called anti-ragging management was pure shit. For safety security guards were placed for the starting 7 to 10 days outside our hostels(not much use) to save us from ragging- codenamed PDP . I won’t say it was purely healthy PDP, not by my reckoning.

The man in charge of overseeing that we were not ragged, Mr S infront of us used to be like he’s the biggest well-wisher but otherwise he used to send a seniors to take the PDP. I remember calling him up, all frightened various times at 10 or 11 in the night asking for help and he used to be, “okay okay I am sending help don’t worry” and instead he used to telephone the seniors standing outside to be relentless. The only unspoken rule of PDP was that you can’t physically harm a junior and that was the only saving grace otherwise every imaginable thing in those times was done. Memorising database, some weird crappy songs, dance steps and a lot of things. The horror used to start after 10 in the night and continue till early morning. I had gone into a shell of my own, walking past people on the streets wondering who might turn out to be a senior and god knows what. The camp system meant that hosteliers were not meant to interact with the locals much, this was the rule from the hostels side and I was the most hated for seniors because in spite of being a hostel wallah I was equally at ease with the locals and somewhat more interactive with them as we had been knowing each other since even before our session had started (all thanks to social media then).

I was looked upon by my seniors primarily due to this fact, also because I used to find ways to face my seniors as less as possible for PDP. Sometimes it used to be that the horrors of last night used to be very visible on my face the next morning in my college and I could do nothing about it. I used to be in college for as long as possible but dreaded going back to the hostel, it was a long night to pass. At the peak of the trauma, my mother had to come for three weeks to stay at my relatives place so that after my classes got over I could rush back to my relatives place and enjoy a at least a night’s sleep. My hostel mates (7 living with me), biggest support system and my biggest help during those days. They used to make sure that I was out of the gaze of the seniors whenever they came. I so badly wanted to enjoy my hostel life but just couldn’t because the initial 3 to 4 months had shattered me beyond belief and it never recovered for the next 7 years. I can’t talk to my classmate just because he’s a local, if I used to speak with someone in the class, some hostel wala chamcha used to complain about the same to any senior and he used to pull me up for this. This happened with me many times and I had to make sure to watch what was I speaking because anything could be quoted out of context to any of my senior for some brownie points and I would be taking hell.

Things improved a bit only after my seniors left. I had started interacting my batch mates only after an year . Its not that all seniors were bad, I got in touch with some of the best seniors and super seniors that I’m still in touch with and respect them from the bottom of my heart (these include both from local and hostels). Whenever the seniors used to come after having passed out I used to give the same respect to everyone but some of them won’t talk to me and I was okay with that.

Forbidden to talk to our classmates on social media then (males and females included), now 9 years down the line I have a much bigger social media and blogger presence than anyone could have imagined then. This might seem like very trivial when you compare it to engineering colleges but at that time for me it was straight from hell with no help in sight. Had it not been my relatives, my hostel mates, my batch mates then, I would have surely attempted suicide.

I want to say to Mr S whom was supposed to be a trusted man, he was surely not and my seniors - some of you surely did not earn my respect then and even after so many years also won’t.

Pirated computer games: Market would forever exist in India

The world of PC gaming is captivating in general and its addictive to say the least in India and its always a war between original games versus pirated discs since years and what I would write on my own thoughts on the FPS Department. For the majority of 17 years that I have been playing computer games, 99% of them have been via pirated CDs (DVDs now) as they were damn cheap and affordable (even today). The pirated DVD game market would never die in India inspite of even super cheap steam or origin sales. 

In Lucknow’s computer market games are priced at Rs. 50 per DVD now. The cost of the game depends on total number of discs in that. When the era of CD was prevalent and DVDs were still expensive, the price was Rs. 40 per CD and DVDs were 100. Over the years when games have been evolving and contained only single player computer games were cheap. In the present era when there are games like call of duty and battlefield which have huge content, the total collective cost would spiral when taken things into account. Let me give you my example- I bought Call of duty Bad company 2 via steam because it was very very cheap at 99 bucks when the original discs at Amazon India were being sold at 1200+. I bought original of battlefield 3. It came into discs and started the drama of downloading and installing origin. 

The nefarious world of call of duty and battlefield games meant that I had to download around 8GB of updates even before I could play campaign. With my home broadband having the free usage limit which is more than enough for normal tasks but not for downloading game updates which are huge, I resorted to use Vodafone dongle recharges where I got 6 GB for six days for only 90 bucks. So in reality I spent 180 more to play battlefield which had cost me 999 from amazon. In contrast I had bought modern warfare 2, Black Ops 2 games(pirated cracked) priced at just Rs. 200 and 150 respectively. I’ve played modern warfare 2 which was all duly cracked and ready to play. Once installed it did not necessitate steam activation or whatsoever in that regard. This does not mean that I haven’t bought originals as in yet. I have done that when I could no longer find my most awaited games anywhere. They were Wolfenstein, Hawxs series, Assault horizon, UT2004, Far cry 4 and the likes. I held up buying original Doom, Wolfenstein Colossus and New order just because it was 25+ GB of game updates even after the disk installed. I vividly remember downloading updates of 2 GB for Max Payne 3, an original buy. 

I’m looking forward to buy quake 4 but even on steam it’s priced at 550 whereas I know that in the pirated market I’ll get the game at maximum Rs. 200 and even after buying of 550,  download that game from steam for which I don’t have the time so I save both the time and the money. All these concerns would rest now that I have gone back to pirated discs once again because there are very easy on the pocket and instant play.

* This post does not promote piracy but states the hard reality of the gaming market in india where high hardware specs and still expensive original discs and huge digital downloads force people to turn to pirated discs which are easy on the pocket and come pre cracked.