Former RAW Chief Vikram Sood Explains What Real Spies Look Like And Why Bollywood Gets It Wrong

Bollywood has spent years convincing us that Indian spies look like the heroes of Ek Tha Tiger, Pathaan and Raazi - stylish, muscular, impossibly glamorous, and always ready for a slow‑motion fight scene or a cross‑border romance.

But if you thought that’s what a real RAW officer looks like, you were far from reality.

In an interview with ANI, former RAW chief Vikram Sood dismantled the Bollywood fantasy with a smile. He called these films “hilarious” and said they should be enjoyed as entertainment, not taken as a guide to India’s intelligence world.

According to Sood, real RAW officers don’t resemble the polished, larger‑than‑life characters seen on screen. “You might have a tall, good‑looking fellow,” he admitted, “but that doesn’t make him a movie spy.” Real agents, he explained, are trained, discreet and sharp not action superheroes who leap off buildings or save the world between dance numbers.

He also dismissed one of Bollywood’s favourite plotlines: the RAW–ISI love story. When asked whether such a romance could ever happen, Sood didn’t hesitate. “He’ll be shot if he does that,” he said bluntly. Only in a controlled operation and never as a love affair could such contact even be imagined.

Even films inspired by real events, like Raazi, take dramatic liberties. Sood made it clear that actual intelligence operations are slow, careful and often invisible. There are no flashy gadgets, no dramatic rooftop chases, and certainly no agents who look like they walked straight out of a fashion magazine.

Real spies, he said, work quietly. Their victories are never celebrated publicly. Their failures, unfortunately, are the ones that get noticed. “Successes stay with you,” he said. “Failures get known.”

Sood is a former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), India’s external intelligence agency. He headed the organisation from 2000 to 2003, a period marked by major geopolitical shifts and high‑stakes security challenges. After retiring from government service, he became Adviser at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), one of India’s leading think tanks. He is also a widely read author on intelligence, geopolitics and national security. 

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