Abhay Verma marks a significant shift in his career with the upcoming Netflix series, Operation Safed Sagar, a creation that highlights the incredible support of the Indian Air Force during the Kargil War. As the series inches closer to its release date, the actor revealed how he brought the connection between him and the patriotic space.
“I think you cannot not know about Kargil, even if you don’t know about the war,” he says and expresses surprise at the fact that it was the name of a small village before the day in 1999, one that was relatively unknown. “A war happened there, we won, and then it became what it became. So, it’s quite incredible,” he shares.
Verma admits feeling connected to “everything that is related to my country, for some reason or the other. And maybe I wanted to become a pilot when I was in school, so perhaps that was one of the reasons,” he mentions.
“When I got to know about the entire operation that the Air Force had carried out, I was like, “This can actually happen, and this has happened.” And this is the reason why my family and I have been sleeping peacefully all these nights. The reason I had a peaceful childhood is because the Air Force was there and they carried out this mission. I said, ‘Wow.’ That’s what it is,” he adds.
Highlighting the sacrifices made by Air Force officers, Verma says, “Making the kind of sacrifices that Air Force officers do and asking for nothing in return, not even recognition, is incredible. As actors, we always crave recognition, and I don’t know how to live without it. So, doing everything for the country and then not asking for anything in return is just the biggest sacrifice. I don’t think that’s human enough. It’s almost godly. So, the emotional connection came right through that.”
Directed by Oni Sen, the series has been created by Abhijeet Singh Parmar and Kushal Srivastava and is produced by Sanjay Routray and Sarita Patil of Matchbox Shots LLP along with Mehboob Pal Singh Brar of Feel Good Films. The ensemble cast features Siddharth, Jimmy Shergill, Abhay Verma, Dia Mirza, Prajakta Koli, Adil Hussain, Mihir Ahuja, Taaruk Raina, Arnav Bhasin, and Amrita Bagchi. The series premieres on August 7, exclusively on Netflix.
