Bollywood actress Sara Ali Khan recently shot an episode of Mission Frontline, a Discovery+ show which gives us a closer look at lives of people who work in defence and paramilitary forces. Sara spent a day in Assam, where she trained with the Veerangana soldiers, India’s first all-women commando unit under the Assam Police. Previously, we saw Rana Daggubati spend a day with Border Security Force jawans and train with them.
In the latest 40-minute episode, we see Sara travel to the northeastern state to train with the Veeranganas for a day. The headquarters of the unit is in Guwahati, where a number of women from all around Assam go through intense training to be physically fit and mentally strong. The Veeranganas were first recruited in 2012 and since then have been trained to fight crimes against women.
Sara’s day with the Veerangans was challenging to say the least. Her first task was to learn Krav maga, a form of combat training used by the Israeli military. In the episode, we saw Sara learn a new kind of combat technique amid unexpected rains. It took the actress some time to get the technique right, but she proved to be a quick learner.
Amid her training, we also saw a closer look at the lives of three Veerangana soldiers, who became self-sufficient and strong with the help of the program. One soldier became a Veerangana to fulfill her father’s promise. Her father, a policeman, had passed away due to a bike accident on the day she aced her twelfth boards.
Another Veerangana battled extreme poverty and hunger, eating broken rice with stones for survival. She became a Veerangana after being ridiculed by men for applying. She not only ended up becoming a Veerangana, but also helping her family out of poverty.
In another instance, a soldier faced abuse from her in-laws and had to escape from their house after her mother-in-law threatened to burn her to death. Her in-laws were against her working or studying after marriage and hence threatened her life. After her escape she worked exceptionally hard to become a Veerangana.
Meanwhile, we saw Sara trying rock-climbing. While she was very excited to try it for the first time, she soon realised it was a very difficult task. She scaled the 40-feet high wall twice and went up a considerable amount of height but could not complete the task. Her last training was to fire an AK 47. She was shown how to safely fire the heavy ammunition and along with other Veeranganas she had to fire several rounds of ammos into targets. Sara, who had not used a real gun even for movies described how loud and scary the experience was for her.
After her basic training was complete, she was sent on a mission with the Veeranganas. They were tasked with rescuing two teenage girls from kidnappers. We saw how the team did a tactical sweep of the location before entering it. During the first try, Sara was nabbed by the ‘kidnappers.’ However, during their second attempt, the Veeranganas could neutralise the kidnappers and rescue the hostages.
While we saw Sara handling the challenges of extreme combat training well, there were also times when she felt like a fish out of water. However, in many moments, Sara could bring her sense of humour on screen which seemed to lighten the heaviness of the episode. While the episode invested more time with Sara and the soldiers’ training than their backstories, it doesn’t seem like the actress is hogging the limelight.
Sara Ali Khan’s Mission Frontline episode explores the intrinsic strength of a woman in a world that tries to keep them from reaching their potential. Not only are the Veeranganas mentally and physically powerful, all of them have navigated societal hurdles and oppression to reach that stage. The episode does an efficient job of shining a spotlight into their lives. Even though it is just a glimpse, it can help create awareness about the unit and also the state and region, around the country.
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