by Shambhu Sahu (twitter: @ShambhuSahu)
If terrorists strike, what would you do? Rush to save YOUR life? With death staring at you, that would be our natural instinct. But Neerja Bhanot wasn’t like that. She was different. Her selfless act of saving several of her passengers’ lives in a hijacked plane got her ‘Ashok Chakra’, India’s highest gallantry award. And she was the first and youngest woman to receive it (posthumously).
If terrorists strike, what would you do? Rush to save YOUR life? With death staring at you, that would be our natural instinct. But Neerja Bhanot wasn’t like that. She was different. Her selfless act of saving several of her passengers’ lives in a hijacked plane got her ‘Ashok Chakra’, India’s highest gallantry award. And she was the first and youngest woman to receive it (posthumously).
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| A poster of 'Neerja', co-produced by fashion photographer Atul Kasbekar. Also starsmusic director Shekhar Ravjiani (Vishal-Shekhar duo) in a special appearance. |
Sonam Kapoor-starrer ‘Neerja’ is
her story. Neerja was a model and an airhostess in Bombay. She was the head flight
purser of the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 73 that was hijacked by four terrorists in
1986 in Karachi, Pakistan. The flight had 376 passengers besides crew members. Pan
Am made Neerja the head purser of the flight. She was extremely happy. With a
bad marriage behind her, her job made her happy. That’s besides the fact that she
was live wire, always full of life, just like her idol Rajesh Khanna, from his film
“Anand”, one of Hrishkesh Mukherji’s classics. Her philosophy: Zindagi lambi nahi, badi honi chahiye (life
shouldn’t be long, should be large) – a dialogue from “Anand”.
That day, her friend Jaideep comes to drop her to the Bombay airport for her early morning flight. Before she bids adieu to him, he confessed love for her, and gives her an advance birthday present as she would be away on her birthday (07th September 1986). On her flight, she was reminiscing about her bad marriage and thinking about Jaideep, and the contrast of the two. When her plane makes a stopover at Karachi, four heavy-armed terrorists barge into the plane. Neerja senses a hijack, and alerts pilots who manage to escape just in-time, making it difficult for the hijackers to get their plans implemented. The plane was headed to Frankfurt. But the terrorists wanted to take it to Cyprus and get their ‘partners’ released.
The movie essentially depicts what happened during the 17-hour hijack, and how Neerja instead of securing her own life, went on to do things that saved her passengers’ lives. Her exemplary courage and presence of mind eventually saved 350 lives. Watch the movie to know how. That’s the whole 02 hour 02 minute movie is all about, and every minute of it worth it.
The film has a gripping plot and Sonam’s best performance yet. She does a very fine job of playing Neerja, in this very honest, close-to-real film. Director Ram Madhvani has kept the narration fast paced, and the film is high on emotional quotient. It leads to teary eyes for several scenes – of losing a young child, of someone who is selflessly fighting to save her passengers’ lives, of children kept as hostages, of terrorist shooting people in cold blood, and of a young girl who is constantly striving to provide a safe escape to as many of her passengers as possible. It’s all worth it.
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| Neerja Bhanot (above) and Sonam Kapoor (left). |
Another remarkable aspect of the film is its casting: look at Neerja Bhanot’s pictures and Sonam Kapoor’s, they are strikingly similar. Even the screen and real life father come quite close.
Madhvani’s last, ‘Let’s Talk’ (2002),
was truly an out-of-the-box film. I still remember it had a remarkable performance
by Boman Irani (this was before Dr. Ashtana of ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ happened to him).
The film is about a married woman, who is having an extra-marital affair, imaging
her husband’s various possible reactions to when she reveals the truth in front
of him. Do try and catch that beautiful little film, agem by Madhvani. Till you
that, go catch this one. It will lead to some kind of catharsis that while we
all have become materialistic and selfish to the core, there was this young woman,
who selflessly laid down her life to save many other lives (none related to
her).
‘Neerja’ once again proves
Bollywood is now hungry for good stories to tell and is not shy of going into
recent history to fish out tales like “Neerja”, “Airlift”, and even “Baajirao
Mastani”.
Text © Shambhu Sahu, 2016
Images only for representational purposes.
(Feedback at shambhusau@gmail.com)
Images only for representational purposes.
(Feedback at shambhusau@gmail.com)
