Vijay Varma: ‘Working with this royal rumble of a cast was tempting’

A still from the series

It doesn't happen every day that a project ticks every box. But IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack proved to be exactly that for Vijay Varma. The Netflix thriller, created by Anubhav Sinha, offers a retelling of the 1999 hijack of Indian Airlines Flight 814, which was carrying 173 passengers from Kathmandu to Delhi. To bring this chapter of Indian aviation alive, the creator-co-director roped in some of Hindi cinema's finest actors, including Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa and Dibyendu Bhattacharya. "Even if I tried, I didn't have a reason to not do the show. The fact that I would get a chance to work with him and this royal rumble of a cast was tempting enough," smiles Varma.

That the subject is a part of India's modern history became another motivation for Varma to say yes. "The script is a page turner. I knocked out 200 pages so quickly. It's based on an incident that is modern history for us. It changed the way the aviation industry works."

The actor plays the pilot in the six-part series. To embody his character and the delicate nature of events that transpired inside the aircraft, he spent a lot of time with the real-life captain, Devi Sharan. Recalling a moment that became his biggest reward for working on the series, Varma shares, "We were in Delhi with the real-life captain. A lady showed up and said that she was in that flight. At that time, she was 24 or 25; now, she has two kids. She was deeply emotional when she expressed
her gratitude to the captain, saying, ‘You saved our lives and both my kids are pilots today.' I thought that was something - to choose to make your kids into somebody, who was in such a difficult situation. The kids were beaming with happiness as they met the captain who saved their mother's life. I can never forget this."