Sehmat consented to Alia playing her role, says Sikka
On a hot summer afternoon in Delhi, a teary-eyed Harinder Sikka recounts the story of Sehmat Khan, the fictitious name the author gave to the real Indian spy, whose inspiring story has reached people through his book, Calling Sehmat, and the Alia Bhatt-starrer Raazi, the film based on the book.
Sehmat, a Kashmiri Muslim, was a vulnerable, inexperienced 20-year-old, who married a Pakistani army officer with the aim of passing on classified information to Indian intelligence, just before the Indo-Pak war of 1971, which liberated East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). It’s an incredible story: of how she was embedded as a spy, of her stellar spirit, of the dangers she went through to save people back home — the intelligence she gathered prevented Pakistan’s plan to attack Indian warship
INS Vikrant.
And all of this is being discussed across India, thanks to Sikka and also filmmaker Meghna Gulzar. But the story of this unsung heroine wasn’t easy to put down on paper, says the author.
How did he come to know about Sehmat? It happened when Sikka, a former Navy man — he took premature retirement in 1993 — went to cover the Kargil War in 1999 as a journalist. Certain things made him feel disillusioned about the Army, and he had this emotional outburst.
He recalls, “I expressed my anger, branding fellow soldiers as traitors. That’s when one of them replied, ‘Not everybody is a traitor; my mother wasn’t.’ That line stuck with me, and I scouted for the officer and his mother.”
The search bore fruit. Sikka says, “I reached Sehmat’s village and almost intruded on her private space. She had a low-profile life; didn’t want people to know about her. In three meetings, she gave me only nine minutes’ audience.”
Sehmat had seen too dark a time, and that made her a recluse. But, she had also found a guru and accepted the Sikh way of life. At their very first meeting, Sikka felt “she had [a] spiritual power”.
Unable to persuade her to tell her full story, the author had little material for his book. But he persevered. “I went to Pakistan, made contacts and did research and got details. The information she passed to Indian intelligence matched with what little she had told me. So I found the connect,” adds Sikka. He had initially written the book with photos, retaining the original name of Sehmat. But Sikka says that was changed on the advice of former CM of Jammu and Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, to whom Sikka showed the manuscript.
After the book was out in 2008, Sikka met filmmaker Gulzar and expressed his desire to give him the story for a film. As we know well by now, that never worked out. However, Sehmat’s story was destined to be moulded for the screen by another Gulzar.
“It was actor Akshay Kumar who introduced me to Meghna Gulzar and she saw the possibility of a film in it,” says Sikka. “Meghna asked me at least a thousand questions and I was happy that if not Gulzar saab, his daughter was making the film,” he adds.
During the process of writing, Sikka would show Sehmat chapters of the book and she’d only underline those lines she wanted to be omitted. And when Sikka told her that Alia was essaying her role in the film, Sehmat just sent a message ‘K’ (‘okay’) to express her consent. Her death in April this year meant she never got to see her young self on screen.
Why was Sikka not a part of the film promotions? “Bulate toh aa jaate,” says Sikka, who got a ‘thank you’ call from Mahesh Bhatt, filmmaker and Alia’s father, after the release.
He has his own thanks to give to the spies. “They remain unrecognised and lead a life of oblivion, and die in the same way.” But for one such spy, that has changed forever.