THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF JUNE OF 2008.

THE SEVENTEENTH  DAY OF JUNE OF 2008.

Anukriti Kedia

‘Please fasten your seat belt. The flight is ready for takeoff’ said the flight attendant, the blue of her formal attire, highlighting the beauty of that blue of her eyes which seemed to be peeping out of the black kohl around it, her cheekbones shaded with a tinge of pink, adding glow to her already fair skin, not even a strand of hair falling on her face, coming out of her neatly knotted bun. But this story is not about this young lady with beautiful eyes and a remarkable posture. Nor is it about me. It is about what happens in AE809, seven thousand miles above sea level on the seventeenth day of June of 2008.

Two minutes after the announcement, one could hear the click of the seat belts, the cabin lights were dimmed and the flight took off. It took off not just on its route, but on its journey. A journey across one continent, one ocean, two seas, and several other states. A journey that was going to take those on-board from Abu Dhabi, to a place with a different time zone, different weather, different people, different culture- New York.

Walking down the aisle, the blacks and whites of the clothes of the Arabs were the most dominant in relation to the other different hues reclined against the grey seat covers. It was way into the night and most of the passengers were fast asleep, the few others on their seats, engaging themselves in books or music under the incandescent yellow of the light overhead. But it was those four seats, of the middle aisle of the fifteenth row, which was the centre of the flight, and not just literally, it was like the bubbling hub of a city half asleep. All four, wide awake, busy in an animated discussion. No, they were not acquaintances, they had become so in a matter of an hour of meeting each other.

“My father wants me to become as successful and independent as him, so he asked me to go and write my own future. I will be studying in New York University for four years,” said Ahaan. He was a young boy, 18 years of age, going to pursue his dream of becoming a young entrepreneur. He was leaving behind his home, parents and elder sister hoping to bring `prestige to his family. Benezeer, a young woman in her mid-twenties on her way to her honeymoon, listening eagerly to what he had to say and also thinking at the same time how she never got the chance to carve her own destiny. She had once dreamed too, of becoming a Director. Of making meaningful cinema to reach out to people. But things had changed since the death of her father. Her destiny taking  its own path. She was a young beautiful woman, sharp features, petite body, but there was apprehension in her eyes. Her eyeballs constantly shifting focus, telling a story of their own.

“What happened” said the man sitting next to her-her husband, Kabir- a rough man, very hardworking but also very cryptic and withdrawn. A man of few words, he had met Benezeer on a local train two months back. Little did he know then that their fates will be sealed together in a holy matrimony just in a matter of a few weeks from then-Benezeer being adamant on getting married as soon as possible. “Your father is doing the right thing, making you understand survival in today’s competitive globalised world” said, Diana, a woman in her early forties, listening to all three of them and thinking about her own family at home. She missed her two children while on business trips. Being a working mom was tiring but she always knew she wanted it-relating to Ahaan’s situation very well.

The conversations kept flowing , from careers to aspirations, to friendship to life, and so the night went by as they neared their destination. A steward came to ask if they needed anything and all  but Benezeer requested refreshments. She was distant today, thought Kabir. Surprised to see his usually talkative bride, behave like this. Nervous, as though there was some crime she had committed. She looked over at her handsome husband and then at her sweaty palms. She knew the time was near. 00:10, it was just minutes away. She knew there was no going back now. She had committed to it and now had to carry it out. Would her mother ever forgive her for cruelly snatching away her future, her husband’s future and also of the 187 other passengers? But she would understand, that all this was for Abba. To let his soul rest in peace. He was her husband, she had to understand.

00:15.It was time.

Ahaan and Kabir were still in conversation while Diana sipped her drink listening to them. Benezeer suddenly got up and walked off. The others assuming that she must be going to the lavatory. But she walked past it. She entered the cock pit pushing out of her way two crew members without the knowledge of her husband or co-passengers. Coming closer to the accomplishment of her mission, with every second that passed. ‘The wait shall finally come to an end’ she thought.

Suddenly the cabin lights were switched on and the crew was on high alert. There had to be something wrong. Was it a storm? They didn’t know that it was a storm of a distinct kind.

The passengers were suddenly woken up by a distressed and overwrought voice. “All passengers to kindly remain seated. This is your pilot declaring an Emergency. I am communicating with the base and making a Mayday call”

A sudden fear gripped everyone. What could possibly be the reason for this.

Suddenly an armed Benezeer walked through the cabins, shouting and telling everyone to stay put. All the passengers were staring at her, not knowing what to think or feel, not understanding what was unfolding before them.  “Arre, that’s Benezeer! You, you knew this was going to happen. You’re terrorists. We’re all going to die. This woman is a terrorist and so is her husband,” screamed a terrorized and aghast Diana. But Kabir knew none of this. These words were like thunder clap for him. He merely sat frozen in his chair. How could this be? How could he not have known this or not have the slightest doubts about this woman? How could he ever marry her like that? Was this even reality? It seemed like the last two months he had spent, were in complete blindness.

Hearing Diana, it hit everyone that this woman was a terrorist and from the looks of it she was a going to attempt mass murder. Right then. She had somehow in this time frame managed to hold onto two rifles. How she managed to get them past security, nobody would ever know. Ready to shoot anyone who protested, though it hardly mattered if she was going to blow up the plane. She reached for a bag in a storage compartment and kept it open in one of the aisles. It contained even more explosives and shrapnel. The trigger, marking the thin line between life and death for all.

‘Will I be able to carry it out? Can I kill so many innocent people just to prove our point?’ was what was going through her mind. She had her doubts but knew she had to carry this out to get the message across. To get her and her companions’ message across. All the planning from the last year, couldn’t go waste. How efficiently it was all figured out. How she would meet Kabir, and make him fall in love with her, and then carry out her mission, with the least suspicion. The only problem being that, it was she who had fallen for Kabir as well. Emotions were one thing she wasn’t taught from her superiors. Emotions couldn’t come in her way. Emotions wouldn’t. She had to take revenge for her father’s death. Complete what her father had left undone. It was all in the name of the greater good for the human being. All in the name of Allah.

And then. It happened. No, not the shootout, but another event which changed the course of the incident. An air turbulence hit the airplane. The balance of the plane went hay wire, and everything inside shook. And it was in the middle of this, that one of the guns in her hand, fell from her hand, slid down the passage and landed right in front of the fifteenth row. Right next to Kabir. Was this a mere coincidence?  Was it an underlying message of destiny? And Kabir, who was numb all this while, gathered all his courage, and acted. He took the gun up, and pointed it straight at Benezeer. While at the other end Benezeer’s gun staring at him in his face as a reflex. The whole flight now, gazing intently at the couple.

“ Benezeer, in one of our last moments, I am not going to tell you about how much I actually loved you, nor will I tell you about what I am going through at the moment. The only thing I am going to ask you is Why? Why did you come in my life? Why would you disrupt my life after adding colour to it? Why would you put the lives of so many people on stake? WHY?”

Benezeer suddenly realized she couldn't go through with it. She just couldn’t take so many innocent lives. But then the evil took over her mind again, and maintaining her stand she said “ Kabir, you will never understand. The World shall never understand until some violence takes place, until some blood is shed. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But there was no other way. And now also, there is no other way.I will have to kill you, if you come in my way.”

“If that is so Benezeer, then I am giving you three seconds to think again. By the end of that, either you will keep your gun down, or I shall fire at you,” said Kabir.

And then the countdown started. There was utmost silence, not even a drop of a pin could break it.

“ONE-TWO-TH….”.

And then there was a gunshot. And Benezeer collapsed. But it was not Kabir’s gun which had fired the bullet. It was her own.What came over her in the last three seconds of her life, nobody would ever know. “The greater good of mankind is in their survival.”  she said in a faint voice. And those were her last words.

And this is what happened in AE809, seven thousand miles above sea level on the seventeenth day of June of 2008.