A Ganesh Nadar

He did the rounds of the grounded plane. And when he saw a co-passenger who, he thought, looked a touch blue around the gills, he would sit down next to him or her. And start reading his hand, or hers.

'You,' he would say solemnly, 'have a wonderful future ahead of you. In your future I see the prospect of a foreign trip that will prove lucrative... a promotion... a financial windfall... a wonderful romance... a child to carry on the family name...'

Anup Sharma didn't know zip about palmistry. Nor did he care. His co-passengers probably knew that he couldn't tell a life line from a life jacket. But they didn't care, either. His goal was to cheer his co-passengers up, their goal was to be diverted.

And when the alternative is the contemplation of imminent death, you are glad of any diversion you can find.

So, for the 173 hours that those 154 passengers were immured in the grounded plane, the choice for the passengers was very clear: Anup and the rosy pictures he painted on the palms of their hands, or the armed terrorists and the very real picture of sudden, violent death.

No contest.

On that ill-starred flight, Anup was one of those who made a difference. By the time it was all over, he was different. A changed man, a man altered mentally and physically by trauma.

"As a marketing man, I fly eight to ten times a month. And every flight is difficult -- each time someone gets up to use the loo, I get the jitters."

"I am hyper-alert these days, when flying. If I see a bag without anyone near it, I alert security. I keep my eyes and ears open all the time."

"Each time I leave home to catch a flight, my young son tells me daddy, please come back on time, don't get hijacked."

"My wife, my family, my friends, all say that I have changed. I know I have changed -- I get irritated faster, I am more impatient, I get angry very often, I am more emotional, if something happens to a member of my family it hits me harder than it used to before."

"For the first couple of months, I couldn't sleep. I used to cry a lot, talk a lot in my sleep."

"My digestive system is still not okay."

"I needed psychiatric help, I still keep in touch with my psychiatrist."

His words paint a collective picture of change. One man walked up the stairway and into the plane. Seven days later, a different man walked out.

Then again, sometimes change can be for the better. Take, for instance, his increased belief in God. "Shirdi Sai Baba in particular, because the hijackers agreed to release us on a Thursday and Thursdays are auspicious for Shirdi Sai. So I am sponsoring a busload of people from my residential colony, on a thanksgiving trip to Shirdi."

He has learnt the value of courage, of keeping your nerve, of not panicking. "I remember how it felt when they hit me thrice with pistol butts, then put a revolver to my neck. I remember how it felt then, and I learnt that panicking and stress doesn't help, it only makes you sick. I learnt to think positive thoughts."

It's not easy, mind -- what positive thought can you think, when you are immured in an outsize steel coffin, with the temperature reading -8 degrees and an even greater chill in your heart as the cold barrel of a gun touches your skin? "But you have to try," he says.

There is a certain studied fluency to the walk he talks of his experiences. The thoughts are organised, the words tumble out with practised ease. "Talking about my experiences is therapeutic," he says. "I must have spoken in public say 20, 25 times, on various platforms. Lions, Rotarians, all kinds of organisations ask me to speak, and I do.

"Sometimes, while recounting my experiences in public, I cry -- but being able to cry helps too. The more you share, the better you feel."

The Internet provides him another avenue for this particular form of therapy. Thus, he has created a website dedicated to recording every single moment of that experience. It has message boards, filled with messages from co-passengers, and from the general public. "I don't need the website to remember, I recall every single moment of that experience, but putting it up there helps, it helps us keep in touch with each other, with the public," he says.

He has learnt the value of reaching out. On the flight, he did that by holding a co-passenger's hand, using the excuse of palmistry. Today, 'palmistry' has been replaced by the telephone, and by e-mail. As you flip through his phone book, you will find, next to some numbers, the notation 'IC814'. Through phone and mail, he continues to reach out, to empathise, to share, and in the sharing, to somehow lessen the trauma.

And yes, he has learnt not to take injustice lying down. "I am planning to sue the government, I am in fact discussing this with my lawyer. Originally, we all intended to sue, but that didn't work out, so now I decided to do it on my own."

Underlying this decision is a burning anger against official apathy. "It was lack of proper security that led to our plight -- and security is the responsibility of the government. They knew it was bad in Kathmandu, yet they did nothing about it. There is apathy everywhere, and it is time someone did something about it."

But suing the government? "Why not?" demands Anup Sharma. "When I do something wrong, don't they punish me, take me to court, put me in jail? Here, it is the government that has done something wrong -- they have to answer for it!"

The Hijack: One Year On