Janhvi Kapoor, who made her Bollywood debut earlier this year in Dhadak, will be portraying India’s first female combat pilot Gunjan Saxena in her upcoming biopic. A picture of Janhvi wearing an Indian Air Force uniform and walking towards an airfield was leaked online yesterday.
Hailing from New Delhi, Gunjan Saxena was one of the 25 cadets in the first batch of woman IAF trainee pilots in 1994. She participated in the 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan and helped rescue injured soldiers from the combat area. She became the first Indian woman to receive the Shaurya Vir award.
To play the part of the brave air combatant, Janhvi will be taking in-depth flight lessons and spending time with Gunjan and her family.
Besides this film, the 21-year-old actor will also be seen in Karan Johar’s Takht, in which she plays an Indian slave girl during the Mughal era. Both Takht and the Gunjan Saxena biopic are bankrolled by Dharma Productions, which also produced Dhadak.
Janhvi is the daughter of producer Boney Kapoor and late actor Sridevi. She recently received the ‘Rising Star of the Year’ award from the Norwegian consulate in India.