Abhiroop Das
Shaped by the vision of creator duo Abhijeet Singh Parmar and Kushal Srivastava, Netflix’s ‘Operation Safed Sagar: The Untold Story of the Kargil War’ reimagines the lives of the Indian Air Force personnel whose decisions shaped the course of the 1999 Kargil conflict. While much of the war drama series follows the pilots who flew combat missions over the Himalayas, specifically the elite Golden Arrows Squadron, we also get a glimpse into the families they leave behind. In capturing their side of the story, the show moves beyond stereotypical depictions, giving the characters a genuine interiority. Among them is Alka Ahuja, the wife of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose life, too, changed irrevocably during the war.
Alka and Ajay Ahuja’s Lives Took a Turn With the Kargil War
While Alka Ahuja’s life is intertwined in one of the Kargil War’s most defining stories, for the most part, she has remained out of the public eye by choice. That said, she participated in the creative process of ‘Operation Safed Sagar: The Untold Story of the Kargil War,’ conversing with actor Amrita Bagchi, who portrays her fictionalized version on-screen. As such, it is likely that her character is at least partially rooted in real-life research about her life in the 90s. Though not a lot is known about how she met Ajay Ahuja, shortly after their marriage, she remembers him jokingly telling her that she was his second love, his first being the Indian Armed Forces. “I felt proud and found in him not only a loving husband but a person who had immense love for the motherland,” she recalled, in an interview with The Times of India.
Alka also noted that Ajay had strictly told his parents that his future partner should have either a Bachelor of Science or a Bachelor of Education degree, and could live independently if something were to happen to him. In the show, we are introduced to a heartwarming anecdote about Ajay saying yes to the marriage after watching Alka make coffee in under a minute. It remains unclear whether this heartwarming detail is a factual account or a creative liberty taken by the showrunners. By 1999, Ajay and Alka had welcomed a son, Ankur, and were living together at Air Force Station Bhisiana, where Ajay was serving as Flight Commander of No. 17 Squadron, the Golden Arrows.
Alka Ahuja Operates a Petrol Pump in Delhi Commemorating Ajay’s Legacy
On May 27, 1999, when Ajay Ahuja died during a combat sortie in the Kargil sector, life came to a halt for Alka Ahuja and her family. Two days later, his mortal remains reached the Bhisiana air base, where Alka bid him farewell. However, recovering from this loss was never going to be easy, and Alka initially found it hard to return to her regular life. In a conversation with Rediff, she recalled being advised against looking at her husband’s face when his remains were brought back to India. In hindsight, she found it to be the right decision, as she believes she will see his smiling face again one day.
When the Punjab government offered to appoint Alka as a Provincial Civil Service officer, she briefly considered it but had to decline after her father’s death, which left her as the sole caretaker of her mother and the then-6-year-old Ankur. With all that in mind, she decided to settle in Delhi instead and continue working as a teacher. As per the policy for the next of kin of martyrs of the Kargil War, Alka was provided with a petrol pump, and since August 2000, she has successfully operated it under the name Ajay Ahuja Filling Station, located in Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1 in New Delhi.
Alka Ahuja Provided Actor Amrita Bagchi With a Different Perspective on the Story
In the years since Ajay Ahuja’s passing, Alka Ahuja has remained in contact with people from the Air Force, be it Officer Bal “Baldy” Reddy or Birender Singh “Tony” Dhanoa. She attended the 10th-anniversary commemoration of the Kargil War in 2009 and laid a wreath to commemorate her late husband at the Kargil War Memorial in Dras, Ladakh. In 2019, she was present when Dhanoa led the ‘Missing Man’ formation at the Bhatinda air base, which shows how she is still deeply connected to the community. During the making of ‘Operation Safed Sagar,’ actor Amrita Bagchi spoke with Alka for several hours and emerged with a completely different emotional understanding of the character she embodies.
In a conversation with Social News XYZ, Amrita revealed that one photograph in particular, that of Ajay, in plainclothes, performing with a puppet, shaped her perspective the most. The actor expressed that “He was a father and a husband, and his love for the country stemmed from those roles. Home is your first country; family is your first country. If that anchor is solid, you can anchor yourself just as firmly to the nation.” While this confirms that Alka was at least loosely connected to the production of this series, she has mostly chosen to keep her personal life private.
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