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I have an uncanny fascination for this four-letter word, WILL. The word signifies tremendous positive energy and shows that once you make up your mind, you can do anything.

Let me relate an incident the late filmmaker Chetan Anand, brother of the evergreen maverick actor Dev Anand, recounted to me in 1987, a few months before his death. Cut to 1963. The country was still nursing the wounds of the 1962 Sino-India war. On a flight from New Delhi to Madras, Anand had a fortuitous on-board encounter with OP Mathai, personal secretary to then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

“Why don’t you make a war film?” Mathai asked. “Always wanted to, but never gathered the nerves to put it together. Need the platoon, guns, army cooperation — an enormous canvas, you see,” Anand said. Mathai fell silent for a moment. “Let’s meet the PM. Maybe, just maybe, he can help you,” he said. The meeting in the capital the following week was short and sweet. “Relished some of your films with Dev,” Nehru said, as he rose to greet Anand. “Have a script in mind?” he went on to ask up-front. Anand hesitated for a moment. He didn’t have one, but this was an opportunity he didn’t want to miss.

“Yes, sir, and it’s based on the China war,” he blurted out. “Brilliant. Take him to Jammu tomorrow Mathai, and see to it he gets all the help he requires to make this film,” Nehru rounded off in his crisp Queen’s English.

It was a script written in 30 minutes, Anand said. “I only knew Balraj (Sahni) and Dharmendra had to be part of my project,” he told me. “A list of all that I would require was pencilled in en route to Jammu. Mathai introduced me to the army chief and he, in turn, agreed to provide all that I needed for shooting — men, guns, locales,” Anand recounted.

A year later, in 1964, Haqeeqat was released. The film was a runaway success, hailed as the first full-fledged Indian war film. Cinematography by Sadanand, art direction by MS Sathyu, music by Madan Mohan — everything dovetailed to hit bull’s eye.

A heart to resolve, a head to contrive and a hand to execute, said English historian Edward Gibbon, are what add up to success. Chetan Anand had all that it takes to make things work. We just need the resolve to surmount the insurmountable, which all of us possess but which needs to be prodded from time to time. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

N Raghuraman is an editor with DNA