Calling Sehmat: A 20 year old vulnerable girl getting married into an influential Pakistani family in order to relay privileged information back home. This is probably going to be the most exciting sentence i’ll ever write.
Sehmat, who is just as beautiful and serene as her birthplace Kashmir, is told by her father on his deathbed that she is to get married to the son of the Pakistani Army’s General for the sake of India’s well being.
A Delhi University student herself, who couldn’t even hurt a squirrel, was given an extensive training for a month by the RAW agents, supervised by Mir who happened to be a close friend of her father Hidayat Khan, who also overlooked a chain of informants for RAW. The one thing that they omitted out in the movie adaptation is the existence of Abhinav (Aby), her classmate and boyfriend who accepted her just the way she was.
She happily gave up on her life for the sake of her motherland and moved to Pakistan to live with her husband’s family. Soon, she started to gain their admiration and trust and made her way into the Army general’s professional life, helping him with decisions and in turn was capable of relaying all the information that they had on INS Vikrant. She could sense the war that was brewing and she had to do something to save her country.
There were instances where she was almost caught and her safety was in danger, when she had to take the hard way out and eliminate certain people out. This took a toll on her which resulted in immense depression for most of her life.
Sehmat was a war hero who has shown immense courage and bravery in dire circumstances but has been left unsung for quite a long time. Even now the names of all the characters have been changed. In Calling Sehmat, Harinder Sikka played his part in bringing the spy in limelight and give her the recognition she truly deserved.
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Book Review of Calling Sehmat:
- The language was quite easy to comprehend and never for once did it feel boring.
- The book is quite fast paced and I literally could feel my heart beat faster on certain pages.
- All the characters were given good description with great motives though I could use some more.
- The drama quotient was quite low and realistic which is how I like my non-fiction.
- Sehmat’s action though saved millions and India’s pride, it completely destroyed two families and herself. You can sympathize so well with her because of Sikka’s words.
- The navy terminologies used were quite cool. That might be because Harinder Sikka himself has been a part of our defense and his extensive knowledge could be understood by his style of writing.
- I found the war scenes at the end a bit stretchy which might be because of the fact that I don’t quite follow war scenes that well.
Overall, a must read! I’ll give it 5/5 ratings.