Amaran follows the familiar template of new-age Indian military war movies like URI: The Surgical Strike and Shershaah to the tee. The result is a very commercial biopic of a great soldier, Major Mukund Varadarajan. The editing is crisp, and the action is fluid, as you would expect. As this is the real-life story of a soldier who was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra—the greatest honor one can receive in the Indian Army—there is not much to explain regarding the ending. The most important part, however, is how true the movie has stayed to the actual story. We’re going to be looking into that first before getting into the explainer of the film.
Spoilers Ahead
Is It based on a true story?
Amaran is indeed the real-life story of Major Mukund Varadarajan coming alive on the silver screen in the grandest possible manner. The late Major Mukund is a recipient of the Ashoka Chakra award, which he got for his incredible contribution to the Indian Army—especially for the amount of courage he showed in the Qazipathri operation, which turned out to be his final mission. On. April 25th, the major of his battalion—the 44th Rashtriya Rifles (44 RR in short)—went to South Kashmir after getting some intel about Altaf Wani, a commander from the Hizbul Mujahideen group, who had been a major target of the Indian army for a long time. One of the biggest obstacles Major Mukund faced during the operation was ensuring the safety of civilians. Once that was done, he and Sepoy Vikram Singh went after Altaf, but Vikram got shot to death by some of Altaf’s people. The major managed to shoot Altaf, and he also got hit. Even though it seemed like he would survive, ultimately he succumbed to death. “Amaran” followed the story, especially the climax, pretty much faithfully. However, there’s a big controversy going on in Tamil Nadu regarding the representation of Muslims in the movie as well as it deliberately trying to hide the major’s identity as a Brahmin. I don’t think that should be an issue, though, as the movie is clearly not concerned about the man’s caste and solely focuses on how he was as a human being. Surely, some cinematic liberties have been taken here, but no way that harms the essence of the real story. Let us now take a look.
What is the movie about?
Major Mukund’s wife, Indu Rebecca Varghese, narrates the entire story on a flight. She, along with her daughter Hasi as well as Mukund’s parents, is going to Delhi from Chennai to receive the Ashoka Chakra. In the flashback, Indu meets Mukund for the first time at the Madras Christian College. It doesn’t take long for the two of them to fall in love. Mukund’s family—father, mother, and two sisters—quickly accept Indu as their own. His mother does appear a little skeptical, given Indu is a Malayali Christian (and they’re Tamil Brahmin, a term the movie never utters, about which we’ve already talked about), but it’s hard not to fall in love with Indu (does it help that Sai Pallavi plays the part, and she is quite excellent?). While Mukund’s family gets on board with the relationship very easily, Indu’s family strongly disapproves. That is mainly because Mukund, being an army man, is always at a life risk, and Indu’s doctor father (and also her brothers) doesn’t want someone like that for her. While the concern is logical enough, they take it to an extreme point where Mukund and Indu even end up breaking up. However, eventually their love proves to be strong enough to convince Indu’s family, as they finally agree after meeting the major in person. Mukund and Indu marry, and almost two years later they’re blessed with Hasi.
Mukund rising through the ranks
A large chunk of Amaran is obviously focused on Mukund’s life and career in the army. After getting promoted to captain, he is initially deployed to the Syria-Lebanon border, serving the United Nations. That is followed by a posting at the 44 RR, as the company commander. The bonding between Mukund and his CAT (Counter Assault Team)—especially Sepoy Vikram Singh—is one of the major highlights of the movie. From his superior, Colonel Dabas, Mukund gets to know about Altaf Baba, who’s considered the most wanted terrorist in the entirety of Kashmir. He makes it a point to take care of Altaf Baba and first makes an attempt at a peaceful solution by meeting the terrorist’s father. That goes in vain as Altaf’s father refuses to cooperate and proves to be delusional, thinking of his son as a freedom fighter. We’re obviously talking about the whole conflict of whether Kashmir should become an independent region or not here. Anyway, despite all the obstacles—that includes quite a lot of stone-pelting Kashmiris who back the militants and truly believe in them—Mukund and his team do manage to get the better of Altaf Baba. The terrorist gets caught and promptly killed by Mukund Himself. Obviously this is bound to bring some ugly retaliation, and exactly that happens. Altaf might be gone, but his death rages quite a fire amongst the terrorists, and Jaish-e-Mohammed commander Asif Wani (the character is based on Altaf Wani) emerges as the one head that needs to be cut off.
How does Mukund die?
The severity of the terrorism situation only keeps increasing as Asif Wani continues to cause trouble for the Indian army. First he kills Mukund’s informant Latif, who had a huge part to play in Altaf’s death. Then, on the way to Latif’s funeral, Mukund and his team (he and Vikram are travelling with a few people from 35 RR here) get ambushed by Asif Wani and his people. The major and Vikram survive, but soldiers from 35 RR become casualties. But Asif doesn’t stop here; next he kidnaps 44 RR soldier and key member of Mukund’s CAT – Waheed, while he’s on leave for a festival. Waheed is taken to a black village, a place that’s hard to infiltrate with firearms as it’s under the control of the militants. Despite Colonel Dabas ordering him not to put his life at risk, Mukund and his CAT team go on a dangerous rescue mission, and they manage to save Waheed just in time, when he’s about to be publicly beheaded. Mukund suffers an unfortunate accident afterwards when one of the soldiers from CAT accidentally fires a shell, and it hits the major in his stomach. To save his team member from getting suspended, Mukund opts to go to Kerala for his surgery and recovery, under the care of his father-in-law. Indu is expectedly mad when she gets to know about this, after seeing Mukund’s bandages. He obviously didn’t tell her, being the good husband who didn’t want his wife and daughter to worry about him. After spending some time with his wife and daughter, Mukund returns to Kashmir again. His mission is still not completed after all!
During the election in Jammu and Kashmir, RR 44 is put in charge of making sure that a peaceful environment is maintained in the state, for obvious reasons. But of course, Asif Wani is not going to remain silent, and his militant followers start showing their colors by burning buses and whatnot. At this point, Mukund is determined to kill Asif Wani at any cost. He gets the opportunity when he finds out about a village where Wani is hiding. When he reaches there with his team, Mukund realizes that the mission is going to be quite tricky due to the presence of a lot of civilians. Like a true soldier, he first makes sure everyone—especially women, children, and the elderly—gets out of the village. Only then does he make his move, with Vikram following him, and you know the rest. Major Mukund Varadarajan dies a hero, only after completing his mission. Amaran ends with Indu telling us how she’s in a long-distance relationship with Mukund forever. That’s quite heartbreaking to say the least.
