I was slightly more than a decade old when Pan Am flight number 73 from Mumbai to New York via Karachi and Frankfurt was hijacked by terrorists. I was already an avid newspaper reader by then but for some reason I have no concrete memories of reading about this particular event, though I do have crystal clear memories of my life during that time. As an adult, somewhere on the fringes of my sub conscious, I was aware that there had been a brave Indian lady purser who had saved lives during a hijack attempt but I had totally forgotten the details. It is for people like me and for others born much after me, that a Bollywood producer and a director decided to make a movie based on this young lady's incredible devotion to duty, even when under fire, titled 'Neerja'. It released in India and worldwide just day before yesterday.
Much as I wanted to watch this movie, I was undecided whether to do so or not. I knew it was horribly sad and did I really want to spend the week end with a huge headache, brought on by my horribly weak and copiously leaky lachrymal glands? My daughter had a long weekend and she said," Mom we are going!'' And so the decision was taken out of my hands. Let it not be said I do not listen to my daughter... As far as my son was concerned, I put my foot down and said he had to stay at home with his Dad, who isn't keen on anything that Bollywood churns out anyway. I did not want him to watch people getting shot in cold blood, as terrorists are wont to do the world over, nor did I want him to experience a hijack situation even second hand, more so as we will be flying home in a few short months.
And so my daughter and I were at the theatre. We bought the more expensive balcony tickets as we always do, and as it turned out, we were the only two in the entire balcony! It seemed a sacrilege to buy snacks as this movie was not an out and out entertainer but the reenactment of a terrible tragedy, that would have been magnified, had it not been for Neerja and the other brave pursers who worked with her. We settled for chocolate instead and hoped the subsequent release of dopamine would help to counter the effect of our tears. I messaged my family back in India, "S and I set to cry, @ Neerja."
Neerja Bhanot, the Chief Purser of that ill fated flight, was two days short of her 24th birthday and had joined Pan Am just six months earlier, after escaping from an abusive arranged marriage. She was also a well known television and print advertisements model and managed to balance both her careers. The film opens with Neerja returning home late from a day long shoot and then tells her mother to wake her up at 1:00 a m, as she had to report for her flight. Her mother asked her to report sick, since she had already put in a full day's work but the girl is adamant about doing her job and says its her first flight as a Chief Purser, as her superior had already reported sick. At this point, one does wish that she had listened to her mother!
As her mother wakes her up, it is clear that the bond between the two is very strong. The poignance of these last hours with her parents is very potent as we, as the audience, know something they do not. They will never see their beloved daughter, given the sobriquet 'Lado' ( the beloved one) by them, alive ever again. Little things touch you as you watch and many middle (lower, middle, upper) class Indian mothers will identify themselves with Rama Bhanot, Neerja's mom. No matter how early our children are leaving the house, we wake up even earlier and pack food for them, usually 'Parathas', and then admonish them before they leave, that they should be sure to eat the food! And we check that they have done so when they come home again, as her mother had done, just the night before, when Neerja finally reached home. And yes, she also switches on the hot water geyser a little before she wakes her daughter up, as many Indian homes do not have instant hot showers. I have lost count of how many times I have done this for my kids back home in India! It is little nuances like this that help you to immerse yourself in the story, though you know the end.
Terrorists enter the plane when it lands for a short stop over at Karachi, in Pakistan. Neerja manages to convey the hijack code to the pilots who follow protocol and abandon the aircraft. Then this slip of a girl identifies herself to the terrorists as the person in charge and convinces them that she needs to do her duty, just as they are doing theirs. So she serves people water, coffee and snacks during the course of the next seventeen hours, even as no help seems to be forthcoming from any quarters. She also comforts the unaccompanied children and the elderly on the flight.She, at great risk to herself, manages to collect and hide passports of all American citizens on board when she realizes that the terrorists aim to shoot Americans first. She also smuggles instructions on how to open the emergency exits in the plane to passengers sitting near those exits. Now you realize that you should pay attention when the crew disseminates safety information, no matter how many times you may have flown before.
Meanwhile, at home, Neerja's mother and dog, with the unexplained sixth sense that mothers and canines both have, have been feeling uneasy since morning and her mother has the strong feeling that something is wrong. Her journalist father soon calls up to break the news that Pan Am 73 has been hijacked. Thus begins the endless wait for a darling daughter who will never come home alive.
Seventeen hours into the ordeal, the one engine that was running gives out, there is auxilliary power failure and the plane is plunged into darkness. The terrorists, thinking this is the start of a rescue attempt, start firing and throwing grenades indiscriminately. Neerja shouts for all emergency exits to be opened and opens one herself. Now comes the moment why she has been lauded far and wide. Instead of sliding down the slide herself, she starts pushing passengers down. Eyewitnesses say she was outlined against the door and was a clear target but continued helping people. In the darkness and melee it is not clear whether she actually died shielding the unaccompanied minors, as there are conflicting accounts about this version. The movie shows this story and this is what you choose to believe because she did save them with her quick thinking and accomplished her duty as all of them had been given in her care at Mumbai airport, as she was the Chief Purser of that flight. Today one of those Indian American girls is a lawyer and the other, her sister, is a doctor, a radiation oncologist, in the United States.
Then instead of taking the opportunity to escape she still tried to search for more passengers and was finally shot at point blank range. When her crew realized she was missing they went back to help her and found her lying in the aircraft. They pushed her down the slide. In the movie, she tumbles down herself. When she finished Pan Am's hijack training, her mother was frightened and told her to run and save herself, should the situation arise. Neerja, fondly scolded her mother for such advice and said she would die before she abandoned her post. And, true to her word, that is exactly what she did. Her mother who died a couple of months ago, herself related this story, even as she blessed all those who were making this movie and those who were going to watch it. The Neerja Bhanot Award for Bravery is given every year on her mother's birthday, by the trust her parents formed, using all the money that this brave heart had saved, while modelling and working with Pan Am.
Neerja Bhanot was given India's highest civilian award for bravery, the Ashoka Chakra. The governments of the United States and Pakistan also honoured her and she is credited for saving 360 lives out of 380. The Indian government also released a stamp in her honour.
Her parents received her body in Mumbai on what would have been her 24th birthday. She was cremated a day later. As her mother said,'' The worst pain a person goes through is that of losing a child. People tell me my daughter is now immortal, which brings me little comfort, because I will never see her again in this life..."
Do go and watch the movie to honour Neerja's memory, as intended by her family, when they gave permission for this biopic to be made. Do not take young kids. Let's preserve their innocence as long as we can. If you are prone to claustrophobia, do not go, as almost the entire two hours are shot in the confines of the aeroplane.
And yes, for those of my generation who grew up in India, Neerja was the Amul Mom in the advertisement on television, in which the kid ironically says,"I'm too old for tricycles, too young to be a pilot." She replies ''You're just right for Amul Chocolates!'' I loved that advert as a child and always enjoyed watching it. She died soon after it was made, but our one and only television channel played it for years! I discovered yesterday that the model was Neerja Bhanot! I'm going to buy Amul chocolates for myself and my kids in her memory, when I go home this summer, even as I mentally salute Neerja Bhanot, who died so others could live.
Picture credit:www.neerjabhanot.org
Much as I wanted to watch this movie, I was undecided whether to do so or not. I knew it was horribly sad and did I really want to spend the week end with a huge headache, brought on by my horribly weak and copiously leaky lachrymal glands? My daughter had a long weekend and she said," Mom we are going!'' And so the decision was taken out of my hands. Let it not be said I do not listen to my daughter... As far as my son was concerned, I put my foot down and said he had to stay at home with his Dad, who isn't keen on anything that Bollywood churns out anyway. I did not want him to watch people getting shot in cold blood, as terrorists are wont to do the world over, nor did I want him to experience a hijack situation even second hand, more so as we will be flying home in a few short months.
And so my daughter and I were at the theatre. We bought the more expensive balcony tickets as we always do, and as it turned out, we were the only two in the entire balcony! It seemed a sacrilege to buy snacks as this movie was not an out and out entertainer but the reenactment of a terrible tragedy, that would have been magnified, had it not been for Neerja and the other brave pursers who worked with her. We settled for chocolate instead and hoped the subsequent release of dopamine would help to counter the effect of our tears. I messaged my family back in India, "S and I set to cry, @ Neerja."
Neerja Bhanot, the Chief Purser of that ill fated flight, was two days short of her 24th birthday and had joined Pan Am just six months earlier, after escaping from an abusive arranged marriage. She was also a well known television and print advertisements model and managed to balance both her careers. The film opens with Neerja returning home late from a day long shoot and then tells her mother to wake her up at 1:00 a m, as she had to report for her flight. Her mother asked her to report sick, since she had already put in a full day's work but the girl is adamant about doing her job and says its her first flight as a Chief Purser, as her superior had already reported sick. At this point, one does wish that she had listened to her mother!
As her mother wakes her up, it is clear that the bond between the two is very strong. The poignance of these last hours with her parents is very potent as we, as the audience, know something they do not. They will never see their beloved daughter, given the sobriquet 'Lado' ( the beloved one) by them, alive ever again. Little things touch you as you watch and many middle (lower, middle, upper) class Indian mothers will identify themselves with Rama Bhanot, Neerja's mom. No matter how early our children are leaving the house, we wake up even earlier and pack food for them, usually 'Parathas', and then admonish them before they leave, that they should be sure to eat the food! And we check that they have done so when they come home again, as her mother had done, just the night before, when Neerja finally reached home. And yes, she also switches on the hot water geyser a little before she wakes her daughter up, as many Indian homes do not have instant hot showers. I have lost count of how many times I have done this for my kids back home in India! It is little nuances like this that help you to immerse yourself in the story, though you know the end.
Terrorists enter the plane when it lands for a short stop over at Karachi, in Pakistan. Neerja manages to convey the hijack code to the pilots who follow protocol and abandon the aircraft. Then this slip of a girl identifies herself to the terrorists as the person in charge and convinces them that she needs to do her duty, just as they are doing theirs. So she serves people water, coffee and snacks during the course of the next seventeen hours, even as no help seems to be forthcoming from any quarters. She also comforts the unaccompanied children and the elderly on the flight.She, at great risk to herself, manages to collect and hide passports of all American citizens on board when she realizes that the terrorists aim to shoot Americans first. She also smuggles instructions on how to open the emergency exits in the plane to passengers sitting near those exits. Now you realize that you should pay attention when the crew disseminates safety information, no matter how many times you may have flown before.
Meanwhile, at home, Neerja's mother and dog, with the unexplained sixth sense that mothers and canines both have, have been feeling uneasy since morning and her mother has the strong feeling that something is wrong. Her journalist father soon calls up to break the news that Pan Am 73 has been hijacked. Thus begins the endless wait for a darling daughter who will never come home alive.
Seventeen hours into the ordeal, the one engine that was running gives out, there is auxilliary power failure and the plane is plunged into darkness. The terrorists, thinking this is the start of a rescue attempt, start firing and throwing grenades indiscriminately. Neerja shouts for all emergency exits to be opened and opens one herself. Now comes the moment why she has been lauded far and wide. Instead of sliding down the slide herself, she starts pushing passengers down. Eyewitnesses say she was outlined against the door and was a clear target but continued helping people. In the darkness and melee it is not clear whether she actually died shielding the unaccompanied minors, as there are conflicting accounts about this version. The movie shows this story and this is what you choose to believe because she did save them with her quick thinking and accomplished her duty as all of them had been given in her care at Mumbai airport, as she was the Chief Purser of that flight. Today one of those Indian American girls is a lawyer and the other, her sister, is a doctor, a radiation oncologist, in the United States.
Then instead of taking the opportunity to escape she still tried to search for more passengers and was finally shot at point blank range. When her crew realized she was missing they went back to help her and found her lying in the aircraft. They pushed her down the slide. In the movie, she tumbles down herself. When she finished Pan Am's hijack training, her mother was frightened and told her to run and save herself, should the situation arise. Neerja, fondly scolded her mother for such advice and said she would die before she abandoned her post. And, true to her word, that is exactly what she did. Her mother who died a couple of months ago, herself related this story, even as she blessed all those who were making this movie and those who were going to watch it. The Neerja Bhanot Award for Bravery is given every year on her mother's birthday, by the trust her parents formed, using all the money that this brave heart had saved, while modelling and working with Pan Am.
Neerja Bhanot was given India's highest civilian award for bravery, the Ashoka Chakra. The governments of the United States and Pakistan also honoured her and she is credited for saving 360 lives out of 380. The Indian government also released a stamp in her honour.
Her parents received her body in Mumbai on what would have been her 24th birthday. She was cremated a day later. As her mother said,'' The worst pain a person goes through is that of losing a child. People tell me my daughter is now immortal, which brings me little comfort, because I will never see her again in this life..."
Do go and watch the movie to honour Neerja's memory, as intended by her family, when they gave permission for this biopic to be made. Do not take young kids. Let's preserve their innocence as long as we can. If you are prone to claustrophobia, do not go, as almost the entire two hours are shot in the confines of the aeroplane.
And yes, for those of my generation who grew up in India, Neerja was the Amul Mom in the advertisement on television, in which the kid ironically says,"I'm too old for tricycles, too young to be a pilot." She replies ''You're just right for Amul Chocolates!'' I loved that advert as a child and always enjoyed watching it. She died soon after it was made, but our one and only television channel played it for years! I discovered yesterday that the model was Neerja Bhanot! I'm going to buy Amul chocolates for myself and my kids in her memory, when I go home this summer, even as I mentally salute Neerja Bhanot, who died so others could live.
Salute Neerja !
ReplyDeleteNeerja thy name is courage and compassion!
ReplyDeleteWow. We will go to watch it! !
ReplyDeleteWow. We will go to watch it! !
ReplyDelete