Dreamt of returning to Kerala, move to new home: Friend of Air India plane crash victim

Hindustan Times

15 hours ago

Forty-year-old Ranjitha G Nair, who was on her way to London for the last time with the aim to finally return home in Kerala, was one of the 241 passengers who died when the Air India flight crashed seconds after taking off from the Ahmedabad airport on Thursday.
'I cannot come to terms with her death because she was with me at every stage of my life. To accept that her voice and her presence at the other end of the phone won't be there anymore is going to be extremely difficult,' Dhanya T Nair broke down into tears as she remembered her best friend, Ranjitha G Nair.
A resident of Pullad in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, Ranjitha had boarded the Air India AI 171 flight from Ahmedabad to return to her nursing job in the UK that she was planning to leave soon and return to her government job back home in Kerala.
Ranjitha, said her friends and family members, received job appointment of a nurse in the Kerala health services in 2019 while she was working abroad in the Gulf. She joined the service, but subsequently went on to take a long leave and joined the NHS in the UK in September last year. Recently, owing to problems adjusting with the cold weather in the UK and some personal health problems, Ranjitha decided to return to Kerala for good and rejoin the government service.
'She told me that she could not adjust to the intense winters of the UK. She also had back problems. There was a self-attested file that she had to send (to clear the papers for her to rejoin the government service in Kerala) for which she came this time. I have lost one of the closest people in my life,' Dhanya told local media.
One of Ranjitha's dreams was to move into her new home currently under construction in Pullad with her mother and two children.
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said, 'Before leaving for the UK this time, she met us. She told us how she yearned to come back to Kerala and settle into her new home. She told us that they would move in before Onam. She was a good-natured girl and both of our families are extremely close.'
As the news of the aircraft crashing in Ahmedabad reached her home in Pullad, her mother and two children burst into tears and relatives struggled to console them.
Her elder son Indhuchoodan is in the 10th grade and her younger daughter Etheka studies in seventh grade. Her mother Tulasi is recovering after cancer treatment while her father passed away years ago.
Health minister Veena George, who consoled Ranjitha's family members at her home in Pullad on Friday, told reporters that the state government would provide all assistance to the family.
The minister said that Ranjitha's elder brother Ratheesh and other relatives have left for Ahmedabad to submit the DNA samples and help identify her mortal remains.
'If the remains can be identified in the first phase itself, it will be done. But if not, then DNA sampling has to be done which will take up to 72 hours. There is a special officer appointed in Ahmedabad to take stock of such issues. We are communicating with them. The district administration will provide assistance in giving the family all documents to identify the remains and avail compensation,' the minister said.