What is it like to spend 16 hours trapped in a hijacked plane? What is the anguish of having your daughter come home in a coffin? What is the taste of terror?
In Neerja, director Ram Madhvani recreates the last day in the life of a 23-year-old Pan Am flight purser, who was killed in 1986. The New York bound flight was taken over by Palestinian terrorists when it halted at Karachi. Following protocol, the pilots abandoned the cockpit. Neerja Bhanot, who was on her first flight, as head purser, took charge. She hid American passports and eventually opened the emergency exits. Neerja saved 359 lives. She was shot dead as she huddled children to safety. She was posthumously given awards for her courage by India, Pakistan and America.
Ram and writers Saiwyn Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla dramatise and embellish this story. In their telling, Neerja is a Rajesh Khanna fan. Early in the film, she delivers his iconic dialogue from Anand — ‘Zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahin’. And then over the next two hours, she exemplifies exactly that. Ram begins by intercutting between Karachi and Bombay. Terrorists prepare bombs while children play with balloons at a building party where Neerja works the mike as the unofficial MC. We see her ordinary home, her gentle middle-class parents, her dog who sleeps on the bed with her. Each scene adds to your dread because you know that eventually these two worlds will tragically collide.