Salakaar

An Indian spy, Adhir, is on a mission to stop Pakistan’s president, General Zia Ullah, from developing the country’s first nuclear bomb. Many years later, in 2025, he is racing against time to protect an undercover agent, Mariam a.k.a Shrishti, who unearths a dangerous secret about a Pakistani officer, Ashfaq, his past and is making a perilous escape. Naveen Kasturia holds his own as an upright spy who does what it takes to fulfil his duties. He maintains appreciable restraint with his body language, diction, lending authenticity to the portrayal. Mouni Roy’s role, Shrishti, comes with many limitations, while she does her best to rise above them. However, her character could’ve exhibited more agency with her choices, actions.

Sometimes it takes less than a minute to realise that something is going downhill. It could be a tacky shot, a corny line, a childish sound cue or an awkward actor; broken craft is the first (and only) indicator. But when it takes less than 30 seconds to realise that an entire show is going downhill, the day ahead can be long and sobering. The politics don’t matter; the theme is futile; the genre is secondary; the bigotry takes a backseat. It just becomes impossible to engage with at a basic level of storytelling. All you can do is befriend your fate and hope for the least damage.

In 1974, Pakistan’s vaulting nuclear ambitions were spiked single-handedly by an Indian spy. And now, in 2025, the chatter around nukes is back again. Will Pak succeed this time around? How will India deal with the new threat? That’s the thrust of Faruk Kabir’s five-part series, ‘Salakaar’, reportedly based on real-life agent Ajit Doval’s canny moves back in the 70s, which find a fresh airing. This is yet another show built on showing the Pakistani establishment, including its then-president, as violent clowns, and the Indians as whip-smart. But it’s hard to take this iteration (writing credits are shared amongst Kabir, Spandan Mishra, Srinivas Abrol and Swati Tripathi) seriously: a scene which is meant to drip menace, has the supreme leader Zia Ullah (clearly based on Zia Ul-Haq, played by Mukesh Rishi) turn up himself at the Indian embassy with a dinner invitation for undercover agent-cum-attache Adhir Dayal (Naveen Kasturia).

What can be more exciting than the world of espionage, especially when the lead character is somewhat fashioned after our current National Security Adviser! We won’t name him since ‘Khuda Hafiz’ fame director Faruk Kabir’s ‘Salakaar’ doesn’t. The similarities, however, are uncanny. Of course, like all celluloid fiction, the series, too, takes cover under a long disclaimer and the ultimate caveat: inspired by true events. As is with all marriages of fact and fiction, as viewers, you are clueless about which part of the film is true and which isn’t. Pakistan, we all know, is a bona fide nuclear nation with a substantial nuclear arsenal. So, why should a web series revisit the days when it was trying to make a nuclear bomb? The period of attention here is 1978 and the focus is on the Kahuta nuclear plant. The man in charge of Pakistan is General Zia-ul-Haq, portrayed by Mukesh Rishi with demonic inflections of a demagogue, which is what perhaps Zia was.

If you came to Salakaar for a straightforward spy story, bless your heart. You must be new here. The Salakaar web series, now streaming on JioHotstar, isn’t content with just tossing you into the morally murky waters of Indo-Pak espionage. Oh no, it hurls you headfirst. Let’s dive deeper into Salakaar JioHotstar web series‘ ending, which is explained here. The Salakaar plot plays out across two timelines (1978 and 2025), mixing historical what-ifs (basically Salakaar‘s true story part) with enough cloak-and-dagger drama to keep you interested. There are nuclear blueprints, Chinese funding, fake families, and a general who quotes Faiz but bans poetry in public. There’s also the little matter of a bomb that could alter South Asia’s future.