02 June,2009 07:50 AM IST | | Upala KBR
Arjun Rampal is keen to make a film based on the life of his maternal grandfather Brigadier Gurdayal Singh who designed the first artillery gun for the Indian army post-independence; one that is still being used today.
The actor, who turned producer with I See You (2006) says, "Both my paternal and maternal grandfathers were
It's light artillery, long-range gun which one can easily take and airdrop or carry up into the mountains. Though grandfather had not studied engineering, he had a very intelligent mind and worked on the design with lots of engineers.
The gun took him two years to design and is still used in the Indian army more than 40 years later. Most weapons are discontinued when they become old. My brother Colonel Shashi Rampal told me that the gun was used in the Kargil war."
A wonderful life
Arjun is all admiration for his grandfather and the life of courage and valour he led as an army officer. "I would love to make a movie on his life it was a wonderful one. It's a dream I would want to fulfill soon. My grandfather served in both World War I and World War II.
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Whenever my siblings and I would go to visit him in Jabalpur, where he stayed he would tell us stories about the two samurais he got from the Japanese army. It was during World War 2, when the Japanese had infiltrated Burma and Indonesia and grandfather was serving under British.
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My grandfather was the commanding officer defeated the Japanese army and the Japanese commander-in- charge handed over his samurais to grandfather as was the custom."
The actor continues, "My grandfather was a special man because he rose from a jawan to a Brigadier. He started the first para-trooper regiment. There's a whole museum in Deolali which has an artillery center made in his honour. Grandfather was a decorated officer.
As children, when we visited Deolali he would take us to the museum and the ranges to watch all the shows. We saw the Bofors guns. Iu00a0 was keen to join the army and had even gone and visited the NDA but somewhere along the way, decided to become an actor. I would love to act in a film on the armed forces." J P Dutta, are you listening?
