DU raised my confidence: Barun Kashyap on his road to Operation Safed Sagar | Exclusive

For Barun Kashyap, three years at SRCC shifted his focus from Economics to writing, music and arts. Years later, that detour led him to Operation Safed Sagar

When Barun Kashyap joined Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in 2010, he had no plans of becoming a screenwriter. The Economics graduate from Delhi University is now one of the writers of the recently released six-part OTT series Operation Safed Sagar, which dramatises the Indian Air Force’s role in the 1999 Kargil War and the Golden Arrows squadron.

Barun Kashyap (left) with the team of Operation Safed Sagar (Instagram)

“I wanted to explore more opportunities and hence decided to step out of Guwahati,” Kashyap recalls. He focused on Classes 11 and 12, secured the marks he needed and got Economics at SRCC. But by his first year, he had made another discovery: “I loved the subject, but I don’t want to make a living out of it.”

SRCC, instead, gave him the space to explore. “Every university has a very vibrant culture of music and arts. So I again got inclined towards that.” He played music and performed at several places, while also becoming part of the college’s photography society and Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), now known as Enactus. “We used to design business models for socially disadvantaged groups.” One of their projects involved a microfinance model for rickshaw pullers in North Campus.

His growing interest in work outside college also meant he was, by his own admission, “barely in class”. But he says the faculty understood what he was doing. “My professors knew that I was doing something with my life. I was not just bunking classes and doing nothing new. So they were really supportive of me.” He adds, “They were very proud of me, and they just said that you at least maintain the minimum attendance so that you can be in the right amount of your programme. It’s not that, okay, you are not interested in Economics, so we don’t care. They were just very supportive of what I was doing in life.”

That support, Kashyap says, gave him confidence. “I think SRCC just gave a lot of exposure, and it raised my confidence because I come from a small town. I think the college and the faculty are really good. They really encouraged me.”

The connection with his college remains strong. After Operation Safed Sagar released on Netflix on August 7, he says, “I got a lot of messages from my SRCC batchmates, and they were really proud of the learning that I took.”

From Assam’s blackouts to Kargil

There is another thread connecting Kashyap’s childhood to his eventual career: storytelling. He grew up in Guwahati in the 1990s, during what he describes as “the peak of insurgency in Assam”. His father was a theatre actor and painter by hobby, and during curfews and blackouts, he turned to films to keep his children away from the violence outside.

“There used to be a lot of curfews and blackouts in my city,” Kashyap says. “I realised that he deliberately wanted us to be in the arts rather than getting influenced by the violence that was happening outside.”

One of those stories was Sholay. “I have actually heard Sholay first from my father before even watching it on screen. Those were very fond memories that I have.”

His father later pushed him towards the violin, theatre and painting. “That shaped me.” He lost his father when he was 16, but says he remains grateful for those early lessons: “I am very grateful that he did that because he didn’t want us to get affected by the violence.”

Kashyap moved to Mumbai in 2014, but the transition was hard. “It’s very difficult for people like us with no film background in Bombay to make a mark.” Before Operation Safed Sagar, he spent three to four years developing an independent series about the Assam insurgency movement. That project did not materialise, while a short film he wrote also remained unmade. Its screenplay, however, opened another door.

“When Abhijit (Singh Parmar, series’ co-creator) was looking for writers, I gave that screenplay as a sample work, and he really enjoyed reading it. That’s how I got the chance to work with him,” Kashyap says.

Writing the IAF story

For Operation Safed Sagar, directed by Oni Sen and created by Abhijeet Singh Parmar and Kushal Srivastava, Kashyap joined Sandeep Jain and Nikhil Ravi as a screenwriter. The six-part series, which premiered on Netflix on August 7, follows the Golden Arrows and the IAF’s role in the Kargil War. Netflix says the production drew on extensive research and first-hand consultations with IAF veterans, and was filmed at operational IAF bases and high-altitude locations.

“I don’t have any defence background. None of the writers actually had. So we really had to read about the Indian Air Force in detail.” Knowing the broad outline of Kargil was not enough. “It required a lot of reading into what their culture is like, what their daily life is like, and even learning about what they are flying, because technically we wanted to be as accurate as possible.”

The writers consulted veterans and pilots extensively. “We were fortunate enough to meet the veterans,” Kashyap says. “Hearing things, hearing the anecdotes from their own mouths, that changed a lot of my perspective personally.”

The research took around two to two-and-a-half years to reach the final screenplay. “There were a lot of other projects that had come in, but I refused all of them, turned them down because this was for me an opportunity of a lifetime.”

The technical details were a challenge for an Economics graduate. “For me to even understand the timing behind how they drop the bomb and what’s the calculation that goes into everything, understanding those took me back to my math and science class.”

The team, however, did not want technical accuracy to overwhelm the narrative. “We didn’t want to make it like a documentary. So we wanted the audience to also understand the technical aspects.” This meant “a lot of back and forth in the technical aspect” with pilots and consultants to ensure they were getting it right.

The research also changed his understanding of the politics surrounding the war. “I knew that they backstabbed us with the context of the Lahore bus yatra and the peace treaty. But as I started reading and we started reading more about it, then we got more nuances in how there was a power struggle going on between General Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif.”

One detail surprised him: “I personally didn’t know that Nawaz Sharif was being dictated by something called a kitchen cabinet where his father and a few other politicians, higher-ranking politicians, used to make the decisions and Nawaz Sharif would be just like the face in front of the camera.”

The creators wanted the writers to emerge from the process with a detailed understanding of the world they were depicting. “By the end of the show at least you guys should be pilots on paper, in the sense that you should know everything about the machine and about the lifestyle and about Indian Air Force in detail.”

‘Probably the least I could do’

The research also changed Kashyap’s understanding of the people behind the uniforms, particularly the families of officers. “The meetings of wives of these officers were also humbling and a fresh perspective which we have included in the show.”

He believes their role has rarely been explored on screen. “The role that the wives of these officers play, it’s also so critical, and we have never projected that in mainstream Indian cinema till now.” Living with the possibility of loss, he says, requires a different relationship with uncertainty: “There is no good time or bad time in life. Good news or bad news can come at any time.”

“The whole philosophy that they have of celebrating life, by knowing that anything might go wrong at any moment, is just so encouraging,” he says. “We just keep thinking that our problems are bigger than anyone else’s, and when you meet them then you realise that your problems are nothing.”

The experience strengthened his admiration for the armed forces. “I am just very grateful to all the men in uniform, and I think the Indian Air Force, Indian Army and Indian Navy are the most professional defence services in the whole world.”

Asked whether working on the series changed his own attitude towards the forces, he says, “It just makes me even more proud, and after knowing all the details it makes me feel very grateful that we are being protected by such a professional defence service.”

For Kashyap, the series itself is a modest contribution. “I am very grateful to have been part of the show because it is probably the least I could do to contribute to my country and to the men in uniform.”

‘This is technically my first big break’

After almost 12 years in Mumbai, Kashyap sees Operation Safed Sagar as a beginning rather than a culmination. “It’s almost 12 years in Bombay, and this is technically my first big break.”

He is developing several stories based on real influences, but does not want to be confined to one genre. “I don’t want to stick to one particular genre. So I am exploring all the genres right now.”

For now, the bigger takeaway is persistence. “I just see this as a big entry point for people like us with no film background. And I would not take this for granted and work even harder on the journey because I have so many stories to tell as a writer.”

He calls that persistence “resilience”. “It can be like, one day can be a little humbling, and after a few years you really question yourself: where are you going? But I never had that doubt. I just kept doing my work, and I’m like, it will pay off someday.”

His advice remains simple: “You just need to keep doing your work.”