IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack Review: Gripping!!

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack begins by asking why the hijack lasted seven days and ends in wondering if the good guys fought the bad ones hard enough, observes Sukanya Verma.

On a late afternoon of December 24, 1999 an Indian Airlines flight bound to Delhi took off from Kathmandu airport blissfully unaware of the hell, five armed, masked hijackers are about to unleash on the plane's unsuspecting pilots and passengers.

One of the merriest times of the year turned into a living nightmare for the hostages on board IC-814 as well as the Indian government officials, who were engaged in the rescue as the Airbus 300 made multiple landings at Amritsar, Lahore, Dubai and, finally, Kandahar.

What started off like another day of travel would go down as a dark week in India's aviation history.

Between the plight of the 176 passengers and crew, hijackers' demand for millions of dollars and release of painstakingly captured dangerous terrorists, the public's divided opinion on yielding to their wishes, nexus between Kashmir militancy, ISI, Taliban and Osama bin Laden, bureaucratic inconveniences, blame game within departments, complex geopolitics of India's friends and foes, standoffs and stalemates, media's tireless coverage of the drama, of which Rediff.com was at the forefront, and trauma of angry, anxious families seeking reassurance from a government struggling to cut to the chase, emotions ran high.

Be it the staggering lapse of security in Kathmandu, the government's lax approach in Amritsar (where it's widely believed the situation could have been salvaged) or caving into pressure by letting go three terrorists (Masood Azhar, Omar Saaed Shaikh -- on whose life Hansal Mehta's Omerta was made -- and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar) in exchange for the innocent passengers, these matters became subject of hot debates in the media.

One can gain an accurate understanding of how strongly and diversely the nation felt about it in the pre-social media era across the unfiltered message boards published on Rediff back then.

For a more docudramatic and visual chronicling of the events, check out Anubhav Sinha's six-part limited series, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack on Netflix. (Rohit Shetty's directorial debut Zameen delivers a loosely inspired, mainstream account of the hijack.)

Post his masala film-making renunciation, Sinha has tapped into his righteous rage to crusade for social justice across films like Mulk, Article 15, Thappad, Anek and Bheed. While the realism and complexity fuelling IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack is right up his alley, Sinha's portrayal isn't interested in being an opinion piece.

Treating it like a slice of history, he puts everyone's perspective across without colouring it in the bias of judgement.

Where archived footage and Ninad Kamat's explanatory voiceover gives the uninitiated a context to the distress, dilemma and delay at play, the unintended incompetency of people in power looks at the intricacies of human ebb and flow.

Over the course of six hectic episodes, Sinha achieves a gripping summary of the incident if not a verdict on whether the rescue can be hailed as a success or not.

Apart from all the extensive reportage and real-life figures to research from, Sinha and his co-writer Trishant Srivastava alongside consultant Adrian Levy take inspiration from the pens of the pilot and purser on board -- Flight into Fear -- A Captain's Story by Devi Sharan with Srinjoy Chowdhury and Anil Sharma's book IA's Terror Trail.

There's a horde of people on the hierarchical ladder to keep track of but Sinha uses the chaos to infuse the proceedings with a frantic energy. As is the norm these days, a tendency to single out and berate the ruling party of a previous regime -- in this case, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led government -- evades Sinha's objective purview.

What we see are a bunch of senior, sensible professionals from the Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, crisis management group, ministries of external affairs and defence not deliberately jeopardising the lives of hundreds yet sorely lacking in Plan B. An air of cynicism envelops the room but there's a willingness to still try and hope for the best.

Some of the best moments happen when the series pauses to give a glimpse of the person under their burdened being. Like the read between-the-lines coffee-chai philosophy exchanged by Arvind Swamy ('Coffee is like religion. There's no place for misinterpretation') and Manoj Pahwa ('Chai is like blind faith. Achi ho buri ho, chai hai) or Naseeruddin Shah rolling his eyes at Pankaj Kapur's idealism as 'Jawani ke sabak ko zindagi ke thapede se zyada zor de te hain.'

Sinha paints these diplomats as humans not heroes. He doesn't deem them villains either, even when it's obvious that a common man's life comes to nothing when political decisions are at stake. In contemplating such an extreme possibility, they are no better than the terrorists threatening to bump off passengers or blow up the plane.

The director doesn't dwell deep into the hijackers on board, but, of the volatile five, Burger (Diljohn Singh evokes a rakish mix of Manav Kaul and Jatin Goswami) demonstrates most personality.

It's the pilots, pursuers and airhostesses then that must hold fort as negotiations get underway and terrified passengers do not entirely lose their mind. Captain Devi Sharan's admirable composure finds a suitable embodiment in Vijay Varma's understated serenity. Laying the focus on the impact of his presence of mind rather than himself personally, Varma demonstrates what distinguishes 'method' from 'me.'

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack curiously examines the many faces of crisis.

For the people aboard the ill-fated plane, from uncertainty of life to shortage of vegetarian food to clogged washrooms, there's a plethora of issues.

For the authorities responsible for their release, seeking cooperation from hostile neighbours like Pakistan and Afghanistan plagued by their own rickety politics and appeasing super powers harbouring grudges over nuclear testing, the challenges are endless.

Along with the 'should have,' 'could have,' Sinha's commentary throws in a fair share of 'did this,' 'did that' 'history will always remember...' brand of regrets but, ultimately, leaves it on the intelligence and ideology of the viewer to determine whether it was, as an official puts it 'a fair fight' or not.

Sinha's long-form isn't imprinted in craftsmanship as it is in commentary. Keenly aware this is a situational not character driven premise, he lets his roster of persuasive actors, their heft and credibility do its magic across their combined synergy and luminous intelligence.

Manoj Pahwa's sardonic negotiator, ever the scene stealer in Sinha's recent resume, has the tone of his sarkari entitlement down pat.

Arvind Swamy's calm demeanour plays off perfectly against the somewhat vexed demeanour of Pahwa and Kumud Mishra's cunning.

Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapoor's seasoned, stately exterior and innate arrogance as well as acumen is tailormade for men calling the shots inside closed door conferences.

There are tons of other wonderful actors in roles that are much too tiny to give them prominence but neither skip a beat. Save for the flimflam portrayal of media whose reportage is the backbone of IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack.

It's disappointing to see their role relegated to a cosmetic duo of squabbling ladies caught in a tussle of print and television.

If Dia Mirza's posturing in handloom saris, hipster glasses, nose-ring and 1940s hair undermines the sharpness and seriousness of a journalist chasing a story, Amrita Puri's priggish ajrakh-print-silver earrings stereotype fares no better. Intentional or not, these two send out sneaky couple vibes and that's just about the only interesting thing about their presence.

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack's armour isn't without its share of chinks. A lot of the ongoing sentiment advances with a predetermined knowledge like most recreations of occurrences in the past.

There's the mandatory Quran quoting to tell the principled Muslim from the problematic.

Often there are times when Sinha appears to be chasing dead ends or confusing us by throwing in ambiguities -- like the mysterious ISI officer on the plane, the R&AW officer on board omitted from the official passenger list or the surreptitious interrogation of Masood Azhar in the cell leading up to no breakthrough except projecting an influential brain washer as a petulant brat crying foul, 'Mere baap ne bhi kabhi mujhe thappad nahi maara.'

The passengers get the short end of the stick on screen as well. Treated like a nondescript crowd whose cursory stories -- a father's distant outlook to his son's Down's syndrome, a sick elderly gasping for breath or the most tragic end to a pair of newlyweds, Rupin and Rachana Katyal, never becomes a part of the bigger picture.

Bookended in questions, IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack begins by asking why the hijack lasted seven days and ends in wondering if the good guys fought the bad ones hard enough. The repercussions of their actions and acts of terror that it made possible provide an answer that's disturbing to accept, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack streams on Netflix