Generally, I prefer the subjects of motivation, success, growth, discipline and perseverance for writing a blog or delivering a speech – but first time I am choosing a film to express my emotions. I have been watching movies since early childhood but gradually I restricted myself to watching only sensible movies which have something to learn from. As a result, I came across this wonderful movie – The Vaccine War; the movie is the master piece of its maker Mr. Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri. Mr. Agnihotri has been famous more because of his social service activities, his brave thoughts about naxalism and also because of his best-seller book ‘Urban Naxals’.
Because of the integrity & depth he is carrying in his movies (which we have witnessed in Buddha in a traffic jam, The Tashkent files & The Kashmir files), I was inspired to go for this movie. This movie is based on the real occurrences during covid years. The in-depth ground research, the casting and cinematography has turned this entire effort into a gigantic awakening & thought-provoking phenomenon.
If we keep the politics, films & other things aside then as a business coach & a trainer, I had many learning points from the movie as mentioned below:
- If you are determined – you can achieve: The leftist & corrupt media which was funded by international pharma lobby keeps defaming the Indian government & several agencies and systematically spread the narrative that India can’t do it; we have to rely on the foreign help. But Dr. Bhargava being indifferent of all these things keeps focusing on what he has to do.
- Strong standards & ruthless boss is the guarantee of success: Dr. Bhargav has been a strictest, toughest and ruthless boss ever; he hardly praises anyone, he hardly is impressed by anyone and he hardly accommodates any poor talk or attitude. He doesn’t bother about the hardships, rank & position, personal challenges or practicality of team – he keeps chanting just one thing “karnaa he to karnaa he” – and continuously keeps pushing the entire team to give their better than the best. He negatively motivates his immediate subordinates by threatening “agar kaam nahi hota to resign kar do” – but never ever accommodating any underperformances.
- One TEAM – one Goal: Many agencies & entities like Indian government, ICMR, NIV and many other parallel agencies were involved in the operation of making a vaccine; every agency had their own protocols to follow but looking to the emergency & crisis situation – they all had a common goal of being “Aatma-nirbhar” in vaccine and they all demonstrated a great camaraderie to fulfil this goal.
- No pain no gain: This entire journey has been a tough roller-coaster ride for all the personnel involved; their personal lives were disturbed, they couldn’t see their family for days & days, their normal eating & sleeping routine was disturbed, no one was acknowledging their efforts – on the contrary the corrupt media was defaming them – but still they all fought and achieved the goal together
- Individual, tiny & indirect sacrifices of the eco-system make it big: The children, spouses and other family members of the front-line warriors sacrificed a lot; some was suffering by mental disorders, some was struggling to keep balance between personal & professional lives, some was struggling with the infant they have to take care and performing emergency duty – but they all prioritised the duty over everything else & contributed making this mission successful.
- Working out of the domain expertise to make things happen: Some of the scientists were given a field duty of catching certain types of monkeys from jungle for human trials of vaccine as due to Covid19 situation they were not getting supply of monkeys from either way; they were scientists, not the forest officers nor the animal catchers but still they performed the given task as this was the crucial step of mission achievement.
- Preparation is the vital key: Dr. Bhargav’s team attempts to address media based on the strong emotions they had about the vaccine; but based on mere emotions one cannot stand longer – when team becomes vulnerable against the pointed allegations of media – Dr. Bhargav enters with strong data for each point he wants to make clear and hence it proves that a strong preparation doesn’t only conquer the situation but makes you invincible.
Therefore, I strongly insist to watch this movie to the following people and urge to talk about it, learn from it and spread the wisdom or learning gained out of it:
- Everyone who aspire to grow in business, job or anything you do in life – if you understand and follow above principles then you will also become invincible.
- Each & every Indian because after all this is a success story of India becoming “Aatma-Nirbhar”
