In the ramshackle, cramped lanes of Ambika Nagar in the Indian city of Gujarat, everyone spoke of Pooja and Harshit Patel with pride. The couple had done what none of their relatives or neighbours had managed to achieve before; they had moved abroad, settling among the thriving Gujarati diaspora community in the British city of Leicester.
Their lives in Leicester, where the couple had moved so Pooja could complete her business masters degree – later getting a job at Amazon alongside Harshit – seemed unimaginably glamorous to their relatives and close-knit community back in India. Pooja would call her mother, 58-year-old Chandra Mate, at least three times a day with tales of British life and to show off her latest outfits, spinning in front of the mirror.
Mate, who had never left India and had spent most of her life in this small two-bedroom house in Ahmedabad, lived for these calls. Collectively Pooja and Harshit’s families, who came from humble backgrounds, had spent every penny, sold every piece of ancestral land and jewellery and pooled every resource to get their children to the UK and to pay for Pooja’s degree.
When the couple arrived back in India, surprising their families with the first visit in two years, they were greeted like celebrities. “When I saw her after two years, it was a kind of joy I had never known,” said Mate, wiping away her tears. “The entire neighbourhood came out to greet her and Harshit. Her glow, her presence – everything about her had changed.” By the time they started their journey home, it took almost an hour for them to say goodbye to everyone in the lane.
Yet they never made it back to Leicester. Less than a minute after their Air India 171 flight from Ahmedabad to London lifted off from the tarmac, air traffic control received a panicked message over the radio from the plane’s flight deck. “Thrust not achieved. Falling. Falling. Mayday. Mayday.” Then the radio went dead.
Within seconds, the 227-tonne Boeing dreamliner plane, which had reached 650ft, fell to the ground, exploding into a fireball. The cause of the crash remains a mystery to the authorities and aviation experts, and an investigation is under way.
Now Pooja and Harshit’s bodies lie in the morgue of Civil hospital Ahmedabad, alongside at least 270 others who lost their lives in the crash, including passengers on the flight and victims on the ground. For their parents, the grief of the disaster has been compounded by an ongoing, excruciating delay in getting the remains of their children back.
Authorities and forensic experts have been at pains to emphasise what a complex and gargantuan task it is to correctly identify those who died in the crash, with bodies and limbs still being uncovered from the site over the weekend. Many were charred and dismembered far beyond recognition and a lengthy exercise to match relatives DNA samples to remains has had authorities working overnight for three days, with only about 47 matches made so far.
By Sunday morning, Harshit and Pooja’s families had a small glimmer of hope, believing that both bodies had been identified. They planned to bring them home and made reservations at the local crematorium, to burn them as per Hindu traditions. But by the afternoon, devastating news was delivered; only Harshit’s remains had been confirmed by the hospital.
Harshit, 33, and Pooja, 28, had been devoted to each other since they got married eight years ago. Theirs was what is known in India as a love marriage, rather than one arranged by their families, which is still seen as relatively unique.
Through sobs, Harshit’s father, Anil Patel, said he would not pick up one body without the other. “In life they were inseparable,” he said. “I cannot separate them in death. We will only cremate them together.”
At a press conference with government and hospital officials on Sunday evening, Pooja’s uncle stood up and demanded angrily to know where she was. Officials admitted it could take another three, even four more days for some bodies to be identified.
Gathered together in Ambika Nagar, the couple’s families were broken with exhaustion and grief. Before they moved to the UK, Pooja had been so worried about Anil being alone – his wife had died of cancer six years ago – that she had insisted that he move in with her family. Their two families now share a single home. Dozens of relatives sat in its two small rooms in collective mourning.
As they sat, they shared their final memories of the pair. Pooja had recently suffered a miscarriage, which had left her devastated, but her older sister Aarti Atul Mukture recalled how her sister had arrived in May full of joy and bearing armfuls of gifts for everyone. As Pooja had left for Leicester, she promised her mother to finally buy her a washing machine to ease her domestic burdens.
Mate was filled with regret that she did not take her daughter to the airport due to the suffocating summer heat. “If only I had gone to drop her off, I would’ve had a few more hours with her,” she said, breaking down again.
Yet even as they waited anxiously for the bodies, Anil knew that another episode of pain likely awaited when they finally received them. Officials told the families that they would most likely receive the bodies in “kits”, rather than coffins, as they were so badly burned, dismembered and decomposed. They have been banned from opening them, and will have to cremate them under police supervision.
“We won’t even be able to see their faces. Not one last time,” he said with a sob.