NDTV’s much applauded TV series where the channel takes top Bollywood stars to meet our defense forces had a special guest this time, Priyanka Chopra. The girl who is already being touted as the next Bollywood queen, especially after she signed a 21 Crore, three movie deal with UTV, (the best part being she is free to choose her co-stars, directors etc and not barred from doing movies with other production houses), incidently has Army roots. Both her parents were doctors in the Army Medical College, a fact that explains the girl’s winning the Miss World crown in the year 2000, as Army girls have always been a winner at such pageants. The show kick started with NDTV’s ace anchor Debang giving an introduction of the beauty, amidst a backdrop of mini chaos showing a landslide on the highway to the Army base in Arunachal Pradesh, where the team was headed. Debang was under an umbrella, and Priyanka opened the door of the car to say that she was quite excited about it all, that too after she had waited for 6 hours in her car for the Army to clear the road. Well, the first place where she met the jawans was at the Tenga Munch Point, where jawans from a Sikh Regiment greeted her, and one of their leaders explained to Priyanka that this was the place where the jawans, who are flown in till Guwahati, and continue the rest of the journey to their posts, would come for snacks and all and a bit of rest, and so the name ‘munch point’. Priyanka said that Arunachal was as East as could be, and that she had never been beyond Guwahati. She then boarded the truck, all by herself, where she interacted with the jawans quite a lot. She would ask them where they all were from, and one of the jawans kept referring to her and answering her questions as ‘Yes, Madam’. She praised him by saying that she loved the way he would talk, and was all ears to the song by one of them, commenting “You just made us all emotional!”. At another Tejpur point, she was very keen to see how the jawans do grappling and she said that she had done it once in the movie Krrish, from a height of 40-50 feet. Well, her acts were applauded by the jawans, especially her jump. Then the team headed towards what is jointly called a ‘Mandir-Gurudwara’, where joint prayers are offered by the Sikh as well as the Hindu soldiers. She offered her prayers and went on to offer her tribute to the soldiers who had laid down their lives while fighting in this area. At a bon-fire lit gathering in the night, she was accompanied by hundreds of jawans, where she called in members of the Sikh regiment to have a little Bhangra competition amongst them, and joined in the fun too, quite well. Declaring that both the teams had won, Debang and Priyanka then played antakshri with the soldiers and this time Priyanka’s team won, after Debang’s team couldn’t get any song during the countdown. Priyanka went on to serve food to the soldiers saying that this was one of the acts which she was quite good at. When the beauty visited the Bull’s Eye Range, firstly she was shown all the heavy weapons that the Indian Army soldiers carry and when it was time for her to shoot, she surprised and shocked everyone with her second shot, which, what else, but hit the bull’s eye bang on! A jubilant Priyanka said that she was gonna put it up in her room. The girl visited an Army school where she was audience to a performance by two little girls who danced to ‘aaj ki raat’ from her movie Don. Priyanka quite liked the way in which the two girls tried to do the steps that she had performed in the movie, even asking them where had they learned a particular step, to which they coyly replied ‘by watching your movies’. Well, when the cute act was offer, it was time now for Priyanka to check out the ammunition and guns that were specially shown around to her. Priyanka learnt about a lot of intricacies of the Bofor’s gun, while also learning the operations of an artillery truck, and Indian guns. She actually moved the truck around the field and was quite brave enough to learn all this stuff. She had lifted a very heavy rifle all by herself the previous day at the Munch Point! The girl was told by anchor Debang that it wasn’t necessary to cross a surging river like the soldiers do, to which she bravely replied that she was not scared, rather would make him too do the act! Well, she did perform very well in the river crossing stint though Debang did falter a bit on reaching the other end. After dusk, the soldiers were made to gather in a large meeting place where firstly they were shown a few clips from Priyanka’smovies and then Priyanka herself was welcomed by a group of Bhangra dancers while the lady, who was on cloud nine enjoyed the act hitherto. When Debang announced that Priyanka wanted to play a game with them all, it wasPriyanka’s announcement that ‘only unmarried men qualify’, which made the soldiers not raise up their hands when asked who all were married, to which she said that if married men wanna join in, she won’t be responsible for what all they would have to hear back home from their wives. The mood was upbeat, and Priyanka was joined initially by 5 men on stage who were asked to propose to her in the best way possible. After that, she shortlisted 3 jawans, to which Debang commented “Like Army people, seems like Priyanka too has a big heart”. NOw Priyanka told them that they have to ask for her hand from none other than her mother who was present there. The one who won said “Mummyji, I can do all but die for your daughter, coz if I die, how will I spend time with her?” As always, it was time now for some emotional messages from the soldiers’ homes. The first jawan’s son Abhay stirred up a laugh riot by showing the back side of his room’s door, plastered with Priyanka’s pictures, to which he explained that since his dad didn’t like this all, it was better this way as he wouldn’t get to see it each time he enters the room. The wife called for not just her husband (coz she said that it was difficult now to manage the household), but also invited Priyanka to come and have fresh vegetable recipes made by her. Abhay asked for a special picture of his dad with the star, to have something which other fans won’t have! Priyanka promised the same. Rizwan Ur-Rehman was the next soldier to get emotional by hearing the messages from back home. His father said he felt extremely proud of his son, while his sister told him that she had cleared her college exams with good marks even as she had wasted a lot of time in his wedding. The wife of this soldier too said that she missed him a lot and was sending a lot of his favourite things. Priyanka told him that whenever he would call back to tell them all how much he liked the things they sent, he should tell his wife that she is very beautiful. Here was a former Miss World appreciating the beauty of a soldier’s wife, while also interacting with the men so naturally as if she had always been here itself. The last soldier shown recieving messages was a bachelor, from Delhi’s Najafgarh area, whose family , of a long Army lineage, asked him to serve the nation well, and not caring about his life for that matter. They made the whole gathering laugh when they said that he would be married off in his very next visit, as his dream to build their home first was over. Priyanka before leaving, told them all a story that her father had told her a long time back, about a soldier who was brought to her dad in an injured state, who demanded to be treated ASAP, as he wanted to join his mates back in the war. She thanked them all from her heart, saying that had it not been for them, she or anyone else wouldn’t have the same lives. And before leaving she sang two lines from the lyrics of one of Indian cinema’s most patriotic songs:

“kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tann saathiyo…
ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyo”

Jai Hind!
Jai jawan!