Commodore Srikanth B Kesnur (Retd.) delivered a talk about the inadequate representation of the armed forces in mainstream pop culture such as movies, television series and documentaries.

He held a riveting talk about how popular war movies often overdramatize and fail to capture the reality of military men. While there have been several attempts to portray the life of a soldier in the most unfeigned manner, Indian movies and television series have failed to do so. Movies such as Top Gun have been heaped with high praise for giving us an actual insight into the lives of people in the armed forces. He raised the question of why Indian filmmakers have failed to make movies such as Top Gun which give us a realistic insight into the lives of the people in the military. He discussed the movie Rustom which is based on the novel In Hot Blood and how it was a deplorable attempt to showcase the life of a Naval officer. He added how Indian movies and television series showcase a far from real lifestyle of the armed forces. He claimed that Indian filmmakers are afraid of taking risk for the realistic portrayal of soldiers because they fear that these movies would fail to be a blockbuster or a success in the box office. Moviemakers often attempt to add spice to movies by introducing a romantic arc just to grasp the attention of viewers.

Indian armed forces represent the essence of India; they are essentially comprised of different communities. He went on to say that India does not have the tradition of war movies or war comics which inspire the young generation to join the armed forces. He cited the Indian naval uprising of 1946, in which there were more than 400 casualties in Bombay than the Jallianwala Bagh incident in 1913. They came to express the solidarity for the Indian Navy. The pressure from the Indian Navy was key to drive the British out of our country. He went on to talk about how such an important part of Indian history had been completely erased and obliterated from contemporary Indian history. Indian filmmakers often fail to undertake risks and often go with fictionalized plots to garner the attention of the audience. Towards the end of the insightful session, the commodore stated that recent movies such as Uri: The Surgical Strike have been a step in the right direction, but that there is still a long way to go.