I spy a realistic spy

The name is Bond James Bond Closer home itrsquos Pathaan Tiger and so on Movies and series on Indian intelligence agencies are plenty complete with stylised weapons complicated espionage tactics and lots of action But former Intelligence Bureau officer Prabhakar Aloka says reallife intelligence agencies are far removed from the fiction we see on screen In order to bring the reality of these unknown heroes to light he came on board as an advisor for Adrishyam The Invisible Heroes starring Divyanka Tripathi and Eijaz Khan Director Anshuman Kishore Singh and Aloka share their creative journey and how they made Adrishyam a blend of fact and fictionGenesisAloka joined the team of the SonyLIV web series nine months before the shoot aiding them in research and writing In fact it was he who suggested the title Adrishyam Singh who previously helmed shows like Crime Patrol Code Red Awaaz and CID says ldquoI had no idea how the Intelligence Bureau IB works With Aloka sirrsquos input we figured out the functioning of the IBEijaz Khan as BIA Agent Ravi VermaHe gave us ample stories In nine months my entire perspective and the story changed In the show it is a fictionalised agency It is an amalgamation of the Intelligence Bureau IB and the National Intelligence Agency NIArdquo Building a fictitious spy unit Bharat Intelligence Agency BIA gave him the creative liberty to show his actors performing action and having gunfightsBusting mythsAdrishyam tells the story of the BIArsquos undercover officers Ravi and Parvati who track and neutralise terror risks while posing as employees of the meteorological department to the outside world The idea behind the show Singh says was to depict the working of an intelligence agency and how officers neutralise national threats without the aam junta knowing about them Aloka who worked with the IB for 30 years says that he wanted to bring the real world to the viewers ldquoPeople have different ideas about this world which is now popularly called the spyverse People have a very romantic idea of agents They believe spies to be like James Bond who takes his martini shaken but not stirred can fight many people and use gizmos and guns Seeing that fictional world being propagated in the name of spy world made me feel having spent about a quarter century plus in this profession that I should at least try to present what the near truth isrdquo says Aloka who has penned two booksmdashOperation Haygreeva and Operation Sudarshan ChakraDirector Anshuman Kishore Singh on the set of AdrishyamHowever the exofficer understands that for a series to be entertaining it needs to enjoy some creative freedom ldquoWhen you are dealing with hostile elements and donrsquot have weapons in your hand itrsquos a very troubling scenario I wanted to project that but then there are limitations in modern presentation You have to have some element of action so that it is commercially viable Making a true spy movie where the spies undergo psychological trauma and cognitive disruptions is difficultrdquoEchoes of reality in fictionWhen asked exactly how much of the show is based on reality Singh pegs it at nearly 75 per cent He says that the torture sequences to get terrorists and their accomplices to spill the beans are borrowed from reality ldquoAloka sir will not agree to it because of his official position but everything happens To get information out of a terrorist a lot of techniques are applied Yaseen Bhatkal a convicted Indian Islamist terrorist who was the cofounder and leader of the terrorist organisation Indian Mujahideen was given truth serum injections to extract information In one of the episodes we introduced Saira who is a spy in the Pakistani camp The character is inspired from a real person who spied on Pakistan as a local and gathered informationrdquoAn episode traces how new hires in the agency are put on the field with some physical and mental training the rest of the learning happens on the job Aloka seconds that ldquoIn this trade the training is different We have to be mentally and physically prepared Unless you are physically fit you canrsquot be mentally active When you are on the field you have to be mentally prepared to take decisions on your own because you donrsquot have anybody to look back atrdquo explains the exofficer adding that as a spy one has to use any means to get information ldquoSometimes we have to measure the consequences and then take action We are not there to take the bull by the horns every time Sometimes we have to run awayrdquoFor Singh the biggest challenge was to get his actors in line with the concept of the show ldquoThe first thing that we had to do was tell the actors that this is not the police force or the Indian Army Aloka sir told me that when he had just joined the IB he had said lsquoJai Hind sirrsquo to his superior with a salute His superior told him lsquoYou have to be casual here because you have to become a common man You have to become part of the crowdrsquordquoThe spy world so farWhile we have a plethora of movies and shows on spies none have gotten the audience hooked like The Family Man and Special Ops Singh agrees that the Manoj Bajpayeeled series takes a close look at the spy world ldquoI think Special Ops is raw and too stylised which is not close to reality The Family Man is closer to how things are But Adrishyam is different because while the BIA collects intelligence there will be action too The backstories of their respective families and their emotional journeys have been wellplaced While in The Family Man one story runs into 10 episodes here we end the story in two to four episodesrdquo shares the director However Aloka believes that one cannot make comparisons with any show or film because there is nothing to compare ldquoI will only point out one aspect of this entire series In real life we are dealing with an adversary who is equally competent unlike how they are often picturised which is what we did in Adrishyamrdquo