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Cast: Siddharth, Jimmy Sheirgill, Dia Mirza, Abhay Verma, Adil Hussain, Prajakta Koli, Mihir Ahuja, Taaruk Raina, Arnav Bhasin, Amrita Bagchi
Creator: Abhijeet Singh Parmar, Kushal Srivastava
Director: Oni Sen
Streaming On: Netflix
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 6 episodes of 50 minutes each
‘Miyan sahab, hukumat ikhtiyaar ka hi to naam hai. Jis hukumat ke paas ikhtiyaar hi naa ho, wo hukumat kahan rahi’, tells Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpayee to his sly Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif! He further roars, ‘Miyan sahab, aapki aur hamari koshishon se, dono deshon ki aawaam mein ek ummeed jaagi thi, ab yaad rakhiyega miyaan sahab ki dono desh kabhi bhi is dhokhe se ubar nahi paayenge!’ And this lays the foundation of India’s one of the greatest wars fought against Pakistan – Kargil 1999. And Netflix has dropped Operation Safed Sagar, which tells the courageous story of the toughest and most brutal mission led by the Indian Air Force!
Every once in a while, a war drama comes that tells another untold story about an India-Pakistan war. Be it 1965, 1971, or 1999! But rarely comes along a story that strips away the superficial chest-thumping and leaves you with raw, unfiltered emotion. Emotions that do not instill rage in you, but a devastating emotion!
Directed by Oni Sen, Operation Safed Sagar gets the Kargil War finally right – balancing the valor with emotion without any major chest thumping or jingoism! Centered on the Indian Air Force’s pivotal role during the 1999 Kargil Conflict, this series doesn’t just chronicle aerial fights – it leaves you in tears while fueling a roaring sense of pride!
Operation Safed Sagar Review: What’s It About:
Operation Safed Sagar is an untold story of the Kargil War. It isn’t just another addition to India’s ever-growing pile of patriotic war dramas; it is a sincere retelling of all that happened during the world’s highest-altitude operation! A mission, no other Air Force did before, and a mission that turned the tide of the 199 Kargil War, and brought us closer to winning against Pakistan! The six-episode series tracks the Golden Arrows squadron as they’re thrown into a mission nobody was trained for: hitting enemy positions at an unimaginable altitude of 30 thousand feet! Their jets were never built to fight at those altitudes! At the emotional core is Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, played by Siddharth – a real IAF martyr whose story anchors the show’s biggest turnaround!
Operation Safed Sagar Review: What Works:
The show peaks with its storytelling! The plans, the technical difficulties explained brilliantly, and the diplomatic hypocrisy by Pakistan were exposed bluntly! It lands its punches through sheer conviction of performances rather than melodrama. The extended cast by Anjann Srivastava playing PM AB Vajpayee, Vinay Pathak playing Nawaz Sharif, Manu Rishi playing General Musharraf, and Adil Hussain playing the chief of IAF, all form a stellar cast that elevates the storytelling beyond admiration!
In one of the scenes, a Pakistani General tells him, “Chalo seedhi baat karte hain. Ek jhooth hamare liye bol do, phir Inshallah, waapas jaakar apni bahaduri ki medal le lo.” And Ahuja smirks, “Jhooth bolne ke liye kaun sa desh medal deta hai sir. Aur waise bhi koi bhi medal itna keemti thodi naa hai, ki main apne desh se gaddari karun!” And that immense sense of pride is mixed with the immediate helplessness you feel for him! The same helplessness and the rage that his friends feel for him!
In another scene that breaks you down, Bagchi’s Alka says, “Main smile karna bhool gayi thi us din! Jab bhi Ajay sortie ke liye jaate the, main unhe hamesha smile karke bhejti thi, lekin jis din wo Srinagar ke liye nikle, main smile karna bhool gayi thi.” She is lost and broken, but still conducts herself with utmost pride as a martyr officer’s wife!
Operation Safed Sagar Review: Star Performance:
Siddharth doesn’t perform as Ajay Ahuja; he brings him alive. The show spends its first three episodes just letting you fall for this man before it ever puts him in that fighter jet. By the time the mission turns fatal, you’re not watching a soldier die for the nation; you’re watching someone you know disappear! There’s a devastating feeling when you see him fight for the nation in enemy territory as well!
Jimmy Sheirgill, meanwhile, is doing something entirely different, and it works just as well as the senior officer who has to take boys half his age into a fight he can’t guarantee they’ll survive. There is an emotional side to his strong core, and a pride, blended with courage in his commands!
The four boys – Mihir Ahuja, Abhay Verma, Taaruk Raina, and Arnav Bhasin turn men into boys, a task that was assigned to Siddharth’s Ajay Ahuja, and he does it with perfection. The four boys look perfectly synced and ready to tear Pakistan apart when they infiltrate our territories. Meanwhile, the emotional core of the show rests on the friendship between these officers and their wives, beautifully portrayed by Dia Mirza, Amrita Bagchi, and Prajakta Koli!
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Operation Safed Sagar Review: What Doesn’t Work:
If you ask me what did not work for the show, I will fail to point it out! Amidst all the courage and valor, it becomes negligible to notice the VFX flaws, which yet again proves that brilliant content never relies too much on VFX or graphics! A good and strong narrative will also cover up for these flaws, and Operation Safed Sagar rightfully does that!
Operation Safed Sagar Review: Last Words:
This show knows exactly which story it’s telling and, more importantly, whose story it’s telling. It balances the military triumph and the emotional core perfectly! While Siddharth delivers a performance that will be talked about for a very long time, Jimmy Sheirgill and his boys give the show its spine.
The blend of original news bytes makes this story too real and relatable! You will be proud of the story, but you will cry with it as well! This is one of the most sincere war dramas and probably the first that gets it right for the Indian Air Force! Though I have watched Jimmy Sheirgill do this before in Agnipankh (released in 2004), the film went unnoticed!
Operation Safed Sagar still lands as one of the more sincere war dramas by Indian Cinema, put forward brilliantly by Netflix – a mission, and a tribute, that brings its roar through its storytelling rather than elevated BGM and bombing frames, a show that earns its tears instead of demanding it!
4 stars!
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