Border was the first movie I watched in Dolby Surround sound :) at the Topiwala theatre in Goregain West. I was studying at IIT Bombay at that time, and movies were few and far between (others at that time included Pardes at some really sidey theatre in Ghatkopar, and The Peacemaker at the IITB convention hall cum theatre), so when we went for Border, it was such an amazing experience - as the bullets flew on screen, different speakers in different parts of the theatre came alive, when the fighter flew overhead, the sound did too!
Anyway, that's why Border is so memorable, and when I saw it listed on UTV on Independence Day, I thought, why not! I had missed a significant part of the movie already, and I was hoping I didn't miss much of the fight... and had to spend the next hour or so "being primed" on the human angle, the lives of the soldiers back home... boodhi, andhi maa, ek adhuri suhaag raat, cancer se mar rahi biwi, tuta hua chhat, and a few songs to boot. Yes, the movie could have easily been sniped and stripped of all this drama, and it would probably be a lot more fun.
Border is the story of the battle of Longewala on the night of Dec 4th during the Bangladesh war of '71. Most of you guys would not even have been born by then (neither was I, lol). A small contingent of the Indian army led by Major Kuldeep Singh was left defending the Indian border post of Longewala against the advancing tank regiment of the Pakistani army, with plans to "have breakfast in Jailsalmer, lunch at Jodhpur and dinner in Delhi". Air support wouldn't be available until morning, since the Hunters stationed at the nearby airbase were not capable of fighting in the dark. The company commander was given the option of abandoning the post and retreating to safety, bu the and his men bravely chose to fight. And won. A historic battle that perhaps epitomizes the "yeh dil maange more" attitude of the Indian armed forces, brought to the forth time and again in subsequent battles. An attitude that truly distinguishes the armed forces of this country from the rest of the world, an army where senior officers do not fight from air-conditioned bunkers, but go out there in front of their troops, leading by example.
The Indian contingent had 120 soldiers and one jeep mounted M40 gun. And they were joined by 5 aircraft in the morning. The Pakistanis had 2800 soldiers, 65 tanks, and over 100 other military vehicles and arms including anti-aircraft and artillery fire. At the end of the battle India had lost 2 soldiers and the jeep, Pakistan lost 200 and more than half their tanks and vehicles.
Here is a satellite grab that shows the desperate moves made by the Pakistani tanks to try and escape the assault by the Indian hunters on the morning on Dec 5. The circles mark the destroyed tanks. Apparently, the Americans just couldn't believe that their favourite Pattons had met such a desperate end at the hands of the outdated Hunters :)
For more on the battle itself, Wikipedia has a nice page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Longewala.
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