Integritus Prime

I recently watched the movie Mission Raniganj: The Great Bharat Rescue, starring Akshay Kumar who plays Jaswant Singh Gill. Spoiler alerts begin here.

Gill is a manager at SP Mines, who happens to be at the scene of a traffic jam, where he observes that some people are rushing to the scene of Raniganj Coalfields because of a flood in the mine. On his own initiative, he arrives there and proceeds to save 65 coal miners from certain death from carbon dioxide poisoning. At every step, Gill is thwarted by corrupt mining officials and politicians, but he has some help from more upstanding officials, and eventually his scheme to drill a bore hole and send a capsule that would extract one man at a time, is successful.

What struck me about this riveting film, aside from Gill’s ingenuity, resolve, and his empathy for the suffering families of the trapped miners, was the negativity shown by one of the trapped miners, Bhola, played by Ravi Kishan.

Out of the 65 miners who are waiting underground to be rescued, one in particular Bhola has a very negative mindset. He is suspicious of management’s efforts to save the minors, distrusting of his own leader who is communicating with management, and fearful of the rapid water flows.

As the plot develops, the miners must overcome their fear and apathy to move to the highest possible ground to improve their chances of being rescued, as per protocol. The one negative miner, Bhola, creates roadblocks due to his mindset, at every step. Here are 3 examples of harms that result from his negative mindset and behavior:

1. Creating Doubt: When it is time for the miners to move to the highest elevation, Bhola digs his heels in, refusing to go and citing this as the wrong course of action due to the path intersecting with the floodwater. Instead of banding together with his colleagues, he delays them through his fear, causing other miners to become doubtful as well.
2. Breeding Conflict: Bhola strikes Pasu, leader of the miners, played by Jameel Khan, when Bhola finds out that Pasu has been secretly recording carbon dioxide levels. He creates conflict, and injures Pasu, also creating delays in the team’s quest to get to safety.
3. Sparking Panic: Bhola also reveals information about rising carbon dioxide levels to the rest of the miners in an alarmist way, creating panic in the already-stressed and exhausted team. This leads to even more oxygen being used up in the uproar that ensues.

By contrast, Gill and Pasu form a team and take a calming and positive approach to guide the miners and keep them focused on their rescue. In this film, the power of negativity really came to light for me: its power to do harm and make a dire situation worse. It is true, the old adage: life is 10% about what happens to you and 90% about what you do with it.

Share with me your thoughts on negativity – do you know anyone who is always negative? What good can come of it?