One fine day I started work with a flurry of strange calls. One call was to the army authorities with a request to keep oxygen cylinders on standby and the other request was to have a doctor on call with the quick reaction team. The quick reaction team was told to escort Abhishek Bachchan during the shoot of Jai Jawan. Oh! Did I fail to mention that this bit is about the show and how it acquired an even bigger meaning in my life than it already does? My apologies on missing that part. Let me not hold back any of it. Here goes:
Dull boring day at work. Enter Shitij Gupta (Channel Producer Ndtv 24x7)
Shitij: “Hi Umang, The Union Budget is on the 6th of this month, it’s difficult for us to spare anyone so you will have to direct Jai Jawan with Abhishek Bachchan in Kargil, I hope that’s okay.”
Me: (trying to curb my enthusiasm) “I guess, I’ll just check with…”
Shtij: “I have spoken to Vrishali, She’s cool. You speak to Arati/Neil (Producers of Jai Jawan) and figure out the rest.”
Me: “Sure, Thanks”
It was a special episode to commemorate 10 years of the Kargil War. Jai Jawan usually happens in far flung border areas, mostly in extremely difficult climatic and physically draining conditions, this one wasn’t going to be easy either. Having co-produced the show several times in the past, I knew exactly how well prepared we needed to be. I immediately contacted Neil to find out status of things. And the commotion begins. Limited flights, (and more reasons coming up ahead..) Production Van booked for budget programming. (Although it can’t take those roads) So tonnes and tonnes of equipment had to be packed and sent to Kargil by cargo. Needless to say that it had to reach well in time for set up and checks.
We were a crew of 8 who flew from Delhi to Srinagar on the 2nd of July. Srinagar was pleasant but Drass which was the scene of some of the fiercest fights during the Kargil war (a nine hour drive) was much higher and a lot colder. This might be a good time to add that I have an extremely low threshold of cold tolerance, my brain freezes and ceases to function, it’s probably a past life thing – I might’ve died of severe cold or something.
We were warned by our reporters in Srinagar to be very discrete and not disclose that we were from the press, in case we were checked on the way. This was due to an ongoing riot situation in the area. All this was soon forgotten when we witnessed the most exquisite view around us. To call it picturesque is an understatement. With every turn, a new landscape appeared as if picture postcards on a calendar were changing months.
We munched on junk and listened to music on our long drive till we reached the treacherous climb of Zojilla Pass, which gave us an extended welcome and kept our car back for a few hours. Some of our cars managed to move ahead while we were stuck behind an overloaded truck carrying sugar which couldn’t move forward as the road was steep, slushy and narrow. It was pitch dark by then and we were stalled without food, light or hope coming our way. Those scourges of modern times, the mobile phones had no network and truck drivers told us it could be all night. Finally the truck unloaded some of its sugar and managed to move ahead. We reunited with our crew at 1 am. Rupen (Director of photography) by then was on the verge of readying a melodramatic caption of the NDTV production team having gone missing!
We reached our guest houses and crashed, we had one day to finalize shoot plan before the star team arrives.