IC 814 hostages played matchmakers for Japanese woman, Nepali man: ‘She did make-up on all 7 days; changed into nightie’

Netflix’s IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack tells the story of the Indian Airlines flight that was hijacked soon after it took off from Kathamandu in 1999, and was then grounded in Kandahar for almost a week. During this time, the passengers in the plane went through a variety of emotions. While some were surprised as the hijackers gifted them a shawl, some could not come to terms with the reality, as the terrorists had harmed their loved ones. However, after spending a week inside the aircraft, some passengers had started to play matchmakers between a Japanese woman and a Nepali man. In the book IC 814 Hijacked: The Inside Story, flight engineer Anil K Jaggia recounted this episode and shared how the Japanese woman was “completely nonchalant” about the events that were unfolding around her and continued to do her make-up every day.

After the aircraft had landed in Kandahar, the cockpit crew was asked to move into the passenger area. It was here that Jaggia encountered the Japanese woman who would read her Reader’s Digest, change her outfit in the middle of the day, and apply make up while sitting on her seat. He wrote in the book, “Two seats away from me, to my right, sat two ladies, one Japanese, the other from Nepal. The Japanese woman remained completely nonchalant about the happenings around her. She was reading a Japanese language edition of Reader’s Digest. After reading for a while, she would go to the toilet to change her clothes, then return to her seat and do her make-up. She repeated this in the afternoons.”

Jaggia wrote that every night, she would get changed again, recline her seat and go off to sleep. When he asked her about it, she gave a zen response. “At night, she would again change in the toilet, and come back wearing a nightie. Reclining in her seat, she would go off to sleep. This happened for all the seven days that we were in Kandahar. When I asked her about it, she said: ‘Why should I be concerned? What has to happen has to happen’,” he recalled.

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He also recounted that on the day when the negotiations between the hijackers and the Indian authorities ended on a positive note, the hostages were in ‘a festive mood’ as they were finally being freed. It was at that time that the hostages started to exchange mementoes and play matchmakers. “The passengers had been subdued all these days, but now seemed to be getting into a festive mood. A few exchanged mementos. Some tried to play matchmakers: the Japanese lady was found just ‘right’ for one of the Nepali passengers on board,” he recalled.

The hostages were released on December 31, 1991. Out of 190 souls on board, 189 survived.