Actor Vivan Bhathena, who essays a war in the recently released film ‘120 Bahadur’, has shared how Bollywood multi-hyphenate, and his co-actor from the film, Farhan Akhtar described Ladakh to him. Vivan spoke with IANS during the promotional leg of the film, and shared that he worked in a perfect dichotomy during his stay in Ladakh for the film.
While he had to deliver a physically demanding film, he was also consumed by the beauty of Ladakh. Talking about the same, he told IANS, “Farhan described Ladakh to us in the beginning when we reached and he said, ‘You know, this place changes you.
This place reminds you of how small and insignificant you are in the scope of things’. And it's very true. It really makes you feel small. It's a beautiful hell. It's something that looks so pretty, but if you make one wrong move, it can just kill you.
It's barren, it's desolate, there's winds, storms, sand, rock, there's everything that's designed to work against you”. He lauded the soldiers of the Indian National Army for their courage, and endurance to hold the fort, and protect our borders at places which are completely desolate, and far away from civilization.
He further mentioned, “Our soldiers have to really work in those conditions. And for us, it was basically a challenge that we had to take up and prove to ourselves as men that we were hard enough to deal with this. And we did that.
When we started our journey, we couldn't walk 400 meters without grabbing our water bottles. But then by the end of the entire two months, we were walking eight kilometers a night. Walking on the entire village so that we would have enough stamina to last for the fight.
So those are the kinds of things. And the training helped”. “We just pushed ourselves. We would walk at the maximum pace possible. We pushed ourselves to breathe harder, so that we would inhale as much oxygen as possible.
Our breathing changed, our patterns changed, our strength changed, our endurance changed, everything changed. It taught us that, you too, if you work hard enough, can change and no matter what the conditions are, you can prevail”, he added.