1917 Movie

by Kris Sun Feb 16, 2020 7:10 pm

Watch it. Edge of the seat feeling throughout the movie. Amazing cinematography.

by desi aunty Sun Feb 16, 2020 8:09 pm

been wanting to watch this...

by Kris Sun Feb 16, 2020 8:27 pm

desi aunty wrote:been wanting to watch this...

Definitely do. It is one of the best movies I have seen. By the way, the accents will take a few minutes to get used to, but you will actually not even notice it after some time. There is even a couple of sardarjis in the movie.

War movies are a bit difficult for me since my grandfather was in WW 2. Maybe I feel them more intensely.

by confuzzled dude Sun Feb 16, 2020 10:50 pm

War movies, more often than not, are western version of Jihad. They are tools to brainwash an average citizen; there are 100s of movies made on WW 1 & 2, and how many more are needed, if not for brainwashing?

by Kris Sun Feb 16, 2020 11:02 pm

confuzzled dude wrote:War movies, more often than not, are western version of Jihad. They are tools to brainwash an average citizen; there are 100s of movies made on WW 1 & 2, and how many more are needed, if not for brainwashing?

>> This one is a personal story almost. In fact, the protagonist is skeptical of honors etc handed out to soldiers. At the end, you see him walking out into an empty field which presumably is an allusion of the empty land this was fought over. If this were a case of fighting nazis, the good/ bad binary may have been more clear cut

by Seva Lamberdar Tue Feb 18, 2020 10:37 am

Kris wrote:
confuzzled dude wrote:War movies, more often than not, are western version of Jihad. They are tools to brainwash an average citizen; there are 100s of movies made on WW 1 & 2, and how many more are needed, if not for brainwashing?
>> This one is a personal story almost. In fact, the protagonist is skeptical of honors etc handed out to soldiers. At the end, you see him walking out into an empty field which presumably is an allusion of the empty land this was fought over. If this were a case of fighting nazis, the good/ bad binary may have been more clear cut

True. Whenever I watch "the bridge on the river kwai" it still reminds me of my uncle (my father's sister's husband) entering the war (WWII) in Indochina as a soldier in the British Indian Army and later taken as a POW by the Japanese army and spending a great amount of time working for the Japanese driving their army truck. Upon his release as a POW, after the war ended, he returned home with many stories about the life as a POW.

by Kris Tue Feb 18, 2020 11:23 am

My grandfather was part of the same war. He was taken POW in Singapore and died there. He was a Warrant Officer as part of the postal service. I don’t know what this entailed. My cousin thinks he may been in Burma as well. We are hoping we can re construct his experiences. There was a diary of his that was handed to the family but unfortunately seems to have gotten lost. There were personal observations about the war, the camp etc in the diary. In the end, it was a personal story in the context of the war. His demise had a domino effect and his kids had to scramble and my grandmother never really recovered.

by desi aunty Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:44 pm

wow, i wish you could trace your grandfather's story.

i can't get enough of ww2 stories. they are thousands of aspects of it, and they are still uncovering them. especially POW in Japan. from what i read in unbroken, japan was sensitive about media coverage of it as they tried to rebuild after the war, so the western media respected that and suppressed the stories of many. Even those are surfacing now. hope they get as many while some people are still alive.

by Kris Tue Feb 18, 2020 1:21 pm

TW,

The story is very intriguing and also had a domino effect on our family. It used to be very difficult for my dad and his siblings to talk about it without getting emotional. I have been obsessed with this since my 20’s and saw my grandfather’s memorial in Kranji (Singapore) a couple of years ago. His diary which we seem to have lost had quite a bit of detail about camp life. I had a chance to read it on one of my first trips back to India. The thing that stood out was that it had both personal experiences and objective details about people he encountered. My grandfather was friends with an English Officer whom he had tried to convince about petitioning the Japanese for additional benefits. The Englishman apparently resisted it saying they were both prisoners and therefore didn’t have any voice. My grandfather’s point was that they could talk to the Japanese officials on a one on one basis to see if they would budge. His diary notation that day seemed to indicate he was more annoyed with the English dude than the Japanese. This is just one of the nuggets I remember. One thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how this son of a village priest had these ideas and how he cultivated these friendships.

With the internet and the Brits putting things online, I am optimistic I can unearth more stuff about him and the war in Southeast Asia. That’s how I was able to track down his memorial in S’Pore. Need to dig more. One of my cousins is getting curious about this too and I am roping him in.

by Seva Lamberdar Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:28 pm

Kris wrote:My grandfather was part of the same war. He was taken POW in Singapore and died there. He was a Warrant Officer as part of the postal service. I don’t know what this entailed. My cousin thinks he may been in Burma as well. We are hoping we can re construct his experiences. There was a diary of his that was handed to the family but unfortunately seems to have gotten lost. There were personal observations about the war, the camp etc in the diary. In the end, it was a personal story in the context of the war. His demise had a domino effect and his kids had to scramble and my grandmother never really recovered.

According to my uncle (late Mela Ram), the situation for POWs taken by the Japanese army was very tough. My uncle's platoon had about 25 men when taken as POWs, but only 2 (my uncle and another person) came out alive after the War. The treatment as a POW was very harsh and the food awful and harmful (e.g. cooked rice containing chuna / limestone powder). My uncle developed chronic stomach and health problems from that type of diet as a POW, lasting to his death. His family (wife and kids) suffered a lot as he was unable to work after release as POW and as a soldier. Even his military pension was restored many decades later (after retirement).

My uncle also mentioned that he got a bit better treatment as POW from the Japanese army because he drove a truck for it. The other POWs, who could not help the Japanese army in any way by working for it, were considered dispensable, treated worse and worthy to get rid of quickly.

by Kris Tue Feb 18, 2020 3:55 pm

I Seva,

My grandfather had made notes in his diary about a Tapioca based diet. He was trying to fix the wiring for some pooja and got electrocuted. He did live but his health condition deteriorated. The diet and presumable inadequate medical care didn’t help and he eventually succumbed. The family heard of and on from some of his fellow POWs who came back to India. I am not sure as to how many made it back. There was some correspondence from the British government to my grandmother thanking her etc. Beyond that, they didn’t know much about his final days.

by Seva Lamberdar Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:25 pm

Kris,
My uncle came back home after the War carrying a huge bundle of Japanese dollars for his services as a POW. The Japanese army called the money given as payment to foreign POWs as Japanese dollars. Unfortunately, the money was no good and could not be changed / cashed at any bank. Even the Japanese Govt. after the War would not accept / honor the Japanese dollars paid to POWs. My uncle's kids thus ended up using that money (Japanese dollar bills) as play money. I personally, during 1970s, approached a Japanese embassy in North America about the possibility of transferring and cashing that money paid to my uncle as a POW, but it refused while citing that Japan had no more obligations to anyone according to post-WWII agreement in San Francisco after the War.

by Kris Tue Feb 18, 2020 5:16 pm

Seva,

I have some of those Japanese dollars. It was inserted in my grandfather”s diary. I just assumed they would not have any value after the war. I keep them and some of his paperwork in memory of him.

by Seva Lamberdar Sat Feb 22, 2020 10:24 am

The famous Bollywood movies character actor Nasir Hussain also had a POW (IndoChina) connection,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasir_hussain.jpg

"Nasir Hussain's father Shahabzad Khan was a guard in the Railways and Hussain grew up in Lucknow. He himself worked as a fireman in the railways for few months and soon joined the British army during World War II. He was posted in Malaysia and Singapore where he became a prisoner of war. After being freed, he came under the influence of Subhas Chandra Bose and joined the Indian National Army (INA). He was accorded the status of freedom fighter and was given a free railway pass for life." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazir_Hussain)

by Kris Sat Feb 22, 2020 4:56 pm

Apparently, there were quite a few Indians in that war. Wonder how many lives got disrupted. I got some inquiries from someone who is trying to piece together this story. I am hoping I can get more info than what I have.

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