Can anybody be sick of dhansak? In her column Inside Track (The Sunday Indian Express, September 22, 2024) Coomi Kapoor wrote that the then external affairs minister Jaswant Singh complained to a friend that he was "thoroughly sick of dhansak,” following the hijack drama of 1999.
A limited series on the OTT (Over The Top) platform titled IC814: The Kandahar Hijack, about the December 24, 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines airplane by the Taliban, "has sparked fresh recollections of the chilling” incident. The aircraft, carrying 190 persons on board, had taken off from Kathmandu and was headed for Delhi when it was commandeered and ordered to fly elsewhere, finally landing in Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Clockwise from above: the Kandahar hijack
Photo: Wikipedia;
limited series poster on event; Jaswant Singh
The hostages were eventually released on December 31 of that year in exchange for three terrorists being held captive in India. Kapoor writes that "the high level team discussing the release of the passengers was regularly served Parsi food. She noted that "Prime Minister (PM) Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday, December 25, was a day after the hijack and his friend, industrialist Nusli Wadia, customarily sent the gourmet PM vast quantities of choice Parsi fare. The festive cuisine came in handy during the long-drawn-out late night discussions.”
S. V.