Saare Jahan Se Accha - Old School, Fresh thrills

Saare Jahan Se Accha

Hindi - Spy / Drama
6 Episodes ~ 45 min
Netflix

Spy dramas are the flavour of the season. Saare Jahan Se Accha is set around Pakistan’s nuclear program in the 1970s, much like Hotstar’s Salakaar, which dropped just a couple of weeks ago.

The pedigree of Pratik Gandhi and Sunny Hinduja alone was enough for me to choose this one — and I believe I made the right choice.

Based on true incidents, most of the key character names are retained, which adds credibility. It opens with Vishnu Shankar (Pratik Gandhi), a young analyst, narrating how, despite RA&W digging up all the intel and tracking that Homi Bhabha was being closely watched by the CIA, a mere ten minutes made all the difference between life and death, setting India’s nuclear program back by a decade.

In response, RA&W is formally set up under Dr. Kao (Rajat Kapoor), the spymaster. Meanwhile, following the humiliation of the Shimla Agreement (after the 1971 war), Pakistan’s Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Hemant Kher) tasks his best nuclear scientists with pushing the nation’s nuclear agenda forward, building their own atomic bomb.

A newlywed Vishnu is deployed as an attaché in Islamabad, to find out where the weapon is being built and to defuse the threat. Bhutto’s intelligence chief Murtaza Malik (Sunny Hinduja) is the best in the business, constantly smoking out rats which are threats to national security. There is  a mole, a top-secret military leader in play and Murtaza is hot on their heels. Vishnu, meanwhile, has Rafiq (Suhail Nayyar) — an operative disguised as a broker at the Karachi Stock Exchange, laundering money for Pakistan’s generals.

This fast-paced, old-school spy thriller is by the book in the best sense. Those were the times of landlines, ground intelligence, Morse code, messages hidden in cakes of soap or scribbled on walls — and the show captures the milieu exceptionally well. Technically, it is a high-quality product: cinematography, writing, art direction, sound design, and dialogue are all very good.

These days, often we are critical of stretched-out episode lengths, here is a show that actually packs a lot into the short runtimes. In fact, it almost feels an episode short — a little more room could have helped tie up loose ends for a few characters, like Mohini (Vishnu’s wife, played by Tillotama Shome), who is not given much to do.

Sunny Hinduja is outstanding as Murtaza. His dialogue delivery and diction are superb. I cannot vouch for authenticity, but his Punjabi-Urdu intonation feels spot on. As the man who understands the importance of what he’s guarding, he is magnetic and steely. Pratik Gandhi, meanwhile, is as good as ever: suave, calculating, a smiling manipulator. The way he works his charm on Fatima Khan (Kritika Kamra) in a couple of sequences is wow.

The real scene-stealer, though, is Suhail Nayyar as the Punjabi thug-turned-Karachi-broker-spy. Watch how effortlessly he balances emotions, switching seamlessly between Rafiq and Sukhbir. In a world devoid of emotion and feelings, his character has a lovely arc. Rajat Kapoor is terrific as the no-nonsense, all-knowing Dr. Kao. The actor playing Rafiq’s contact — a Pakistani general — makes a strong impact. Across the board, the casting delivers.

Showrunner Gaurav Shukla (who gave us the terrific Asur) pulls together a good writers’ room and crew to deliver a fast-paced, well-written, sharply acted spy drama — one that underplays and yet lands with impact.