Sriram Raghavan's Ikkis: A war film with an anti-war message

Sriram Raghavan’s film Ikkis, now showing, stands out for its humanist vision, writes Samvartha Sahil

In Sriram Raghavan’s film ‘Ikkis’, an angry Pakistani soldier demands that the Indian soldier being ‘hosted’ by Pakistan be thrown out. He says that a man standing on both legs — the Indian soldier — can’t understand the suffering of a man who had lost a leg in the war. The Indian replies, “You lost your leg in the war, and I lost my son,” and hugs him. The Pakistani’s anger vanishes instantly.

‘Ikkis’ is like that warm hug to a society being fed jingoistic films. Sriram Raghavan’s highly patriotic film triumphs because of its deeply humanist vision, and that vision emerges primarily from its screenwriting.

In screenwriting vocabulary, a main character is the person the story is about. A protagonist is a character who is transformed in the course of the story, and the hero is a character the audience roots for. Going by that understanding, Arun (Agastya Nanda) is both the protagonist and the hero of ‘Ikkis’, and Nisar (Jaideep Ahlawat) is the main character. One is an Indian and the other a Pakistani.

The politics of ‘Ikkis’ is in telling not just the story of the brave Arun Khetarpal who was martyred in the 1971 war, but also of Jaan Mohammad Nisar, the Pakistani soldier who for 30 years carried the guilt of killing Arun. ‘Ikkis’ places both the killer and the killed at the centre of the narrative. 

The screenplay works on three timelines. The first unfolds in 2001, when Madan Khetarpal (Dharmendra), father of Arun, is on a Pakistan visit for his school reunion. In Lahore, he is hosted by Nisar. The second narrative unfolds in 1971, during the India-Pakistan war in which Arun gets martyred fighting a regiment led by Nisar. The third is from the years of Arun’s training. Here his love for Kiran (Simar Bhatia) blossoms and wilts.

The non-linear narrative method employed by the screenwriters (Arijit Biswas, Shriram Raghavan and Pooja Ladha Surti) helps us see the characters as humans who are soldiers and soldiers who are humans.

Just before the climax of the 1971 timeline, where Nisar and Arun face each other on the battlefield, we see a pre-war scene where Kiran breaks up with Arun. Her words nudge him to re-evaluate his approach to life — of blindly prioritising duty.

He finally prioritises what is right over what he must do to follow orders. And, in the 2001 timeline just before the climax, where Nisar brings Madan to a spot to reveal that he was the one who killed Arun there, we see a scene from 1971 timeline where Nisar learns about the death of Altaf, a fellow soldier and son of his commander in chief. Interestingly, his chief had entrusted Nisar to take care of his son. These two scenes unfolding closely make us understand why Nisar feels guilty about having killed someone’s son. 

If the film had unfolded in a linear manner, the intertwining of different timelines wouldn’t have been evident. Also, the film would become a celebration of a soldier or a saga of guilt. 

The timelines are synchronised subtly. When Arun abandons his teammates, his team distances him. When he expresses his pain to Kiran, he is asked to acknowledge his mistakes and apologise to the team. When he does that, the team accepts him back. When Arun throws away his half-written letter to Kiran, he is asked by his friend to acknowledge his mistake, complete the letter and repair his broken relationship.

These relationships suggest that the past can be unburdened with the help of love, truth and genuine intent. This is the film’s conversation with the larger politics of hatred, and it makes it stand out from most war films coming out of India.

The humanitarian vision stretches beyond human lives. At Saraj Chak, Arun spots a cat in a building almost destroyed by war. His tank almost runs over a cycle carrying roosters, and one rooster even sits on his tank. There is also Rex, a military working dog, which gets injured and just before Arun’s death, a branch catches fire. By depicting these small elements, the screenwriters have punctured narratives that blindfolds the audience to the costs of war.

The film also has three ISI agents. Two of them place a spy mic in Nisar’s car and follow him when he drives Madan to his ancestral place in Sargodha. Nisar sees them as duty-bound people, like he once was. In a striking moment, following an intense conversation, Nisar and Madan go silent, and the ISI agent secretly hearing the conversations asks his colleague, “Do people at the HQ listen to silences as well? Or, do they forward it?” ‘Ikkis’ listens to the silence.

(The author teaches screenwriting)