Ahmedabad: On June 12, as London-bound flight AI 171 lifted off from Ahmedabad airport, Viswashkumar Ramesh and his younger brother Ajay exchanged a final wave from seats 11A and 11J. Minutes later, the plane plummeted into the BJ Medical College hostel and mess in Meghaninagar, killing 241 people on board, including Ajay. Only Viswash lived. Now back in his hometown of Bucharwadi in Diu, survival offers him no comfort. The 40-year-old businessman from Leicester reportedly battles sleeplessness. He barely speaks as he drifts through the days, lost in grief, questions and survivor’s guilt.Though back with family, Viswash remains haunted by what he lived through, and more so, by who didn’t. “He keeps asking: why only me? If I lived, why not my brother and the others?” shares Sunny Ramesh, youngest of the four siblings. The survivor’s trauma runs deep. Sunny says Viswash has been “unable to sleep” since the tragedy. “How can anyone sleep if their younger brother dies like this? When Viswash realized that he had survived, he thought that Ajay must have made it too. He was shattered when he found out that he was the sole survivor. He is having a tough time accepting this fact,” he adds.Even as his miraculous survival made global headlines, the family has shielded him from visitors and media, avoiding talk of the crash. “We avoid asking questions about the plane crash due to his mental state. He’s not ready for questions so we have kept him away from others. Right now, our only goal is to help him heal,” Sunny said. When the plane crashed, Viswash was the only person who got thrown from the emergency exit window. And by sheer chance, he landed on a mound of soil deposited near the hostel building for construction work.While Viswash’s body survived, his mind remained trapped in that moment, says Sunny. “He is unable to forget those harrowing moments in which he lost Ajay. He is also haunted by the deaths of the other passengers,” he adds. Meanwhile, police have not yet taken Viswash’s statement, and Sunny says his brother will not be in any condition to provide one until he has fully recovered, both mentally and physically.
