Code name - Blockbuster: Poonam Saxena on Bollywood’s infatuation with the spy

Since spy films have been the ticket to box-office triumph this year (Im looking at you, Pathaan and Tiger 3), I couldnt help but go back to a spy thriller from a different era..

In real life, Colonel Prem Sahgal, Major General Shah Nawaz Khan and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon of the Indian National Army or INA were court-martialled by the British, in a trial that shook the country in 1945-46.).

There are plenty of other novel elements that must have captivated audiences in the 60s: transmitters with banks of colourful winking lights; agents using code names such as Sher-e-Punjab and Taj Mahal in urgent whispers; frantic boat chases; even Dharmendra grappling with a tiger..

Ramanand Sagar was looking for a newcomer to cast in Ankhen and went to a movie hall in Mumbai to watch Dharmendra in Shola Aur Shabnam (1961), one of the actors early films..

But these two films bookending Ankhen never quite matched Ramanand Sagars spy outing..

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