It does take a master to create such scenes and it had to be Mani Ratnam again. Bombay, it came at a time when the secular nature of our nation was facing questions. The scars of the incidents that followed have still not healed and the courts of our country have just finished handing out the verdicts. Bombay made us realize that it takes just a moment for us to forget differences and hold hands. The scene where a person identifies himself as an Indian, when asked about his religion and the final scene where everyone holds hands (symbolic to the start of the healing process) did touch our hearts.

Then Mani Ratnam came back with Yuva-Ayudha Ezhuthu, all about youth and the future of the country. We can’t cite examples but we can say for sure that this movie did make some youngsters who had applied for their US visas at least think twice before the movie went out of theaters.

Though all these movies mostly dealt with social problems, they had lot of undercurrent subtle patriotism. That’s what made them even more special. We also had movies like Laagan and Swades which had patriotism and nationalism projected in a different sense and taste.

Now on to the most powerful patriotic scene to be filmed. No points for guessing, this scene; not belonging to any one film in particular, has come and gone many times on screens, in front of our eyes but the impact remains the same every time – The martyr of war being brought back home, the tricolor covering his body and the mellow tune of the trumpet and the twenty one guns that go off together to salute the son who gave up his life for his motherland.