Kanden Seetaye

So the other day I watched the film Crimson Tide on Star Movies concerning a clash of egos and generations on board a US Navy nuclear sub armed with nuclear tipped missiles which is on patrol near Russia to pre-emptively strike a rebel-held nuclear missile silo incase preparations for launch are detected.The issue at hand is whether to launch pre-emptively or not(Gene Hackman is in favour of launch,Denzel Washington is opposed) pending confirmation of a message which is only partially received due to destruction of communication equipment in a skirmish with a Russian submarine sympathetic to the rebel cause.

Said message looks like(from fading memory)  “Nuclear missile laun………………….”At the end of the film,I found myself thinking about it.

I recall a story often narrated by my father,relating to the Ramayana.The story goes that when Hanuman returned from Lanka after delivering the ring to Sita and setting the city on fire with his tail,as soon as he saw his comrades from the search party sent south waiting for him,he roared “Saw Sita….”This resulted in zero ambiguity and an unequivocal confirmation of the fate of his search for Sita.

In the case of Crimson Tide,all the unnecessary ambiguity and clashes etc could have been avoided if,had the message read “Abort nuclear missile launch” instead of reading “Nuclear missile laun………………….”Even in case of partial reception,the message would be to abort and there would have been no reason to doubt the instruction’s intention.As my father would say in Tamil,it should be “Kanden Seetaye” and NOT “Seetaye Kanden” because of the time (granted,very small) between Seetaye and Kanden which may cause anxiety in the mind of the receiver.