Siddharth in ‘Operation Safed Sagar’
| Photo Credit: Netflix
There’s more to war than just gunfire and hand grenades. Strategic and diplomatic decisions made behind closed doors influence the fate of what happens on the battlefield. Operation Safed Sagar understands this as it shifts the perspective and spends time establishing the context of the Kargil war before getting into action. The Netflix series reimagines the turbulent time of the late 1990s as India and Pakistan held peace talks amid the looming danger of the nuclear bomb. A host of stock footage is juxtaposed to gather the grainy memory of the time. The familiarity starts to wade off gradually as the series establishes the Pakistani subjects. Yes, the background score underscores caution, the visuals darken, yet there is a willingness to engage with their perspective. They are not outrightly condemned here as absolute things of evil. The severity of their actions rises from parts of their own crumbling humanity.The restraint is seen in the casting choice as Vinay Pathak plays former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with nuance as he is shown to be caught in the middle of orders thrown by his father, Muhammed Sharif (SM Zaheer) and the abrasive decision-making of Parvez Musharraf (Manu Rishi Chaddha). The Pakistani army general hatches plan to claim parts of Kashmir, sending a sea of troops dressed in tribal outfits to the heights of the snow-capped mountains. The makers keep returning to these hasty meetings between Sharif and Musharraf where the latter easily comes across as the dominating force, successfully managing to manipulate Sharif to go to war with India.Operation Safed Sagar (Hindi)Director: Oni SenCast: Siddharth, Jimmy Shergill, Abhay Verma, Dia Mirza, Prajakta Koli, Adil Hussain, Mihir Ahuja, Taaruk Raina, Arnav BhasinEpisodes: 6Runtime: 45-57 minutesSynopsis: The series chronicles the Indian Air Force’s historic high-altitude aerial mission during the 1999 Kargil War, focusing on the courage of the Golden Arrows Squadron and the human stories behind the uniformsThe political intrigue pays off in these sequences, building a comprehensive picture of the times without overdramatising the events. In contrast, the Indian Air Force officers are shown to be a lively bunch with their own individual issues to tackle, whether it is the initial pride shown by Rajpal Singh Dhaliwal (Abhay Verma) or another officer Bal Reddy’s (Mihir Ahuja) difficulty of communicating with his lover, Madhavi (Prajakta Koli). Reddy and Dhaliwal work around their own differences and personal grudges too in order to find more balance in doing team drills.
