Trama

Inspired by the life of a fearless young officer who made history by becoming the first Indian female Air Force officer to fly in a combat zone during the 1999 Kargil War

Gunjan Saxena's dream since childhood is to be a pilot. She decides to quit her education after 10th form to train as pilot. But with changing times, the qualification changes. Finally she manages to fill out the form after her graduation but then she must back out because of the huge fee. She gets an opportunity to train as a female Air Force officer in a newly-started camp and is the only candidate to be selected. Gunjan then heads for further training towards the Air-Force camp where she must face humiliation from male senior officers for being the only female in the camp.—alex.mjacko@gmail.com

Beginning in Lucknow, 1984, the story begins with young Gunjan Saxena (Janhvi Kapoor) in a flight along with her older brother, Anshuman (Angad Bedi). Gunjan wants to look out of the airplane window, but Anshuman doesn't let her. A kind air hostess tends to the problem and takes Gunjan to the cockpit. Looking at the cockpit immediately sparks a desire in her mind to become a pilot as she feels enthusiastic about the plane's features. Anshuman is very dismissive of Gunjan and says that girls do not become pilots, they only become air-hostesses on commercial planes.

A few years later, Gunjan is congratulated for her academic excellence with her proud parents, Anup (Pankaj Tripathi) and Kirti (Ayesha Raza Mishra), planning to send her to High school (complete 12th class). Gunjan, however, wants to drop out of studies to become a pilot. At that time, the minimum education required to be a pilot was class X, where Gunjan had scored 94%. Anshuman feels that women should not be in the cockpit, but Anup strongly disagrees. He argues that the plane does not care who is flying it, so long as the person is competent and well trained. A firm believer of gender equality, Anup allows Gunjan to experiment with her desire to become a pilot.

From 1989 on-wards, Gunjan makes multiple attempts, but these are thwarted by concerns regarding her educational qualifications as requirements for flight school have now been changed from 10th pass to 12th pass to graduate. Plus, the course for pilot training is costly as it costs Rs 10 Lakhs, causing her to return home dejected each time. Gunjan was prepared to pay Rs 5 Lakhs as that was the fees 5 years ago, but the family cannot help her get Rs 10 Lakhs for the course.

While her parents differ in their outlook towards her dream, with Kirti hoping her daughter would soon be wary and Anup insistent on allowing his daughter to pursue her dreams relentlessly, an advertisement in a newspaper for acceptance into the Indian Air Force provides Gunjan just the right opportunity for making an effort to enter the air force. Anshuman, who is himself serving in the army, completely disapproves and tells Gunjan that the Air Force isn't a place for women. Anshuman tells Anup that while he has never put any kind of restrictions on Gunjan, but now he is actively endangering her safety for the sake of her temporary happiness.

Gunjan, however, ignores Anshuman and Kriti, and goes ahead with the formalities, later finding out on the day of the results that she is the only female who got accepted. The qualification tests had a good mix of aptitude, learning based questions, physical fitness, situation awareness and basic intelligence type assignments. In one test Gunjan is made to stand up on a desk at a window and asked to jump. Gunjan jumps on the desk instead of out of the window, which is what many of the other applicants tried to do. This impressed the evaluating officer.

During her medical tests, Gunjan learns that she is one centimeter too short and seven kilograms too heavy for the Air Force requirements. She is devastated by this but learns that she can take a retest in two weeks. The evaluating officer says that he sympathizes with Gunjan, but he has never seen any person clear a retest with a permanent disability like the height issue.

She discusses the situation with Anup, who asks her not to give up, and together they come up with a workout regime to lose the required weight. Across the retest, she meets the weight requirements, still falls short on the height criterion, but the officers conclude that the length of her hands and legs would compensate for it and accept her into the force.

However, while Anup and Kirti are unable to contain their pride, Anshuman still remains in denial of his sister's dedication, but Gunjan decides to ignore his reservations and commences training at the Udhampur air force base under Fight commander officer Dileep Singh (Vineet Kumar Singh). During her training, she finds herself subjected to several harsh realities. Male officers are ordered to take down all offensive posters from common areas, there is no ladies toilet, there is no space for women to change into flight gear. Nobody mixes with her socially, trainers refuse to train her, juniors refuse to salute her due to the male-dominated order of the air force and contemplates leaving the camp.

Commanding officer Gautam Sinha (Manav Vij) finds that Gunjan is not performing well and takes her for a sortie and simulates an engine failure. Gunjan performs well and Gautam takes over her training personally. Gunjan becomes the top performing pilot, and her colleagues think she is sleeping with Gautam. Dileep continues to undermine Gunjan and humiliates her at every opportunity. Gunjan lashes out at Dileep at a party that the real trouble is all the men are afraid of saluting woman and hence won't let her succeed. She leaves the base.

A crisis situation causes her to reconsider when, in 1999, the Kargil war begins, and all Air Force pilots are needed. Gunjan is determined to take part in the war, and despite Anshuman meeting her and dissuading her from participation, disregards his reservations yet again. She finds herself badly needed in a mission and proceeds with it but is then ordered to abort because the mission is too difficult for her. She reluctantly resigns to the camp. Dileep says she is being sent back to Udhampur as her security is now becoming a national issue.

Suddenly, news of army soldiers being heavily wounded in the battle arrives, and it is up to her to save them. Gunjan and Dileep take separate helicopters and go over to look for injured soldiers. Suddenly, the other helicopter suffers a fire attack from the enemy. Back at the camp, army soldiers ask her to abort the mission but regardless of their opinion, she proceeds. Gunjan rescues Dileep and the wounded soldiers and successfully completes a risky maneuver, despite being exposed to bullets herself. After the mission and the war, she is rewarded for her courage and bravery, with Anup feeling proud of her.