Savdhanbhai and Ratniben at their home in Thavar village, Banaskantha. (Express photo by Bhupendra Rana)
“Kaise ho aap… theek ho?”
For the last one year, that’s how almost every voice text, every call from Omar Ali to Savdhanbhai Chaudhary has begun.
It’s a daily reassurance Savdhanbhai and his wife Ratniben have hung on to since June 12, 2025, when the Ahmedabad-Gatwick Boeing 787 Dreamliner carrying their elder son Kamlesh and his bride Dhapuben crashed minutes after takeoff, killing 241 of the 242 passengers on board.
Over the grief-stricken days that followed, 40-year-old Omar Ali, Kamlesh’s Pakistani co-worker at a fancy goods store in London, and Savdhanbhai, a 48-year-old farmer in Thavar, a village in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district, struck an unlikely bond.
Every day on his way to work, Omar Ali would call Savdhanbhai to talk — regular, everyday conversations about the weather, Savdhanbhai’s infected toe nail, the cluster beans he had eaten for lunch (“guar… what is it, what does it look like?”), Omar’s clean-shaven look. The calls and text messages have come without fail, every single day.
“Hamein zara sa nakhoon me bhi dard hota hai toh Omar poochta hai (Omar calls and asks even if I have a small pain in my toe nail). And if someone is unwell at his home, even if it is a fever, we get to know,” says Savdhanbhai.
Speaking from London, Omar says, “I always tell Savdhanbhai, God made our relationship possible; Kamlesh was the medium for that to happen. I never thought I would be so close to this family. Mere dil ko sukoon sa milta hai inse bat karke aur tassalli de kar (I find peace of mind and comfort talking to them and reassuring them).”
When it all came crashing down
Six months ago, when The Indian Express visited Savdhanbhai at his home in Thavar, he had pulled out a 30-second video on his phone. Shot from outside Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport on June 12, it showed Kamlesh and Dhapuben at the entry gate. Dhapuben, 26, dressed in a traditional skirt, with a bright pink odhani covering her head and face, and Kamlesh, 26, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
“We had gone to drop them off. I rarely take videos but don’t know why I took one that day. Maybe because I thought I should record my bahu’s first flight,” Savdhanbhai had said.
Kamlesh, in the centre, with storeowner Tannibhai (on the left) and Omar Ali (right) before Kamlesh’s last trip home. (Express photo by Bhupendra Rana)
That was Savdhanbhai and Ratniben’s first visit to Ahmedabad. They had travelled over a 100 km and had reached Unjha in Mehsana district on their way back, when they learnt about the crash. They turned the car around and sped to Ahmedabad, praying and hoping that their children would somehow make it alive.
Kamlesh and Dhapuben were among the 241 who died as the plane crashed into the B J Medical College mess building, minutes after takeoff.
Kamlesh, who had been in London since September 2022, came home to Banaskantha for his wedding on November 22, 2024. He had left for London soon after and returned a few months later to take Dhapuben with him.
The family says Kamlesh got a work visa two years ago and had hoped to start a small business in five years. He wanted to take his younger brother Hitesh, 23, a Master’s student in agriculture business management from Banaskantha, along with him. “Now even the thought of that sends shivers down our spines,” Kamlesh’s maternal uncle Devkaran Chaudhary said.
On January 6 this year, Savdhanbhai and his nephew Ishwar Chaudhary made another trip to Ahmedabad, travelling five hours from their village to a hotel in the city. Here, Air India had set up a Family Returns Centre, where relatives of the 241 passengers could collect the personal belongings of their loved ones retrieved from the crash site.
Inside the cavernous hotel room, Savdhanbhai had “wept like a child” as he held a few transparent ziplock bags in his cupped palms. Inside one of them was his son Kamlesh’s charred wedding album. The other held a desktop calendar with a photograph of the newly-weds. “Two souls with a single thought, two hearts that beat as one”, it read, with the couple’s photographs on each of its 12 pages. The other bags had their PAN cards, Aadhaar, voter cards, marriage certificates — all charred or singed yellowed.
“I was holding on to the last things Kamlesh touched. I want to keep these with me forever,” Savdhanbhai had told The Indian Express.
With the bodies, Ratniben says, they were handed over Dhapuben’s payal and an earring and some pieces of Kamlesh’s T-shirt, packed in a box. On the portal that Air India had set up for the ‘unassociated items’ (personal belongings recovered from the crash site that hadn’t been traced to any of the passengers), the family could identify a gold locket which Ratniben had bought Dhapuben a day before they were flying, two kalash (urns) and a silver coin with an engraving of Lord Shiva. “The Air India staff came to hand over the kalash sometime in March. We were asked to produce proof that the other items were ours. How could we? So we let it be,” Ratniben says.
Savdhanbhai says their lives “ended” the day their elder son and his bride died. But a sequel was to follow.
For a year now, he and Ratniben now eagerly await a daily routine — a 3 pm call from Omar. Kamlesh’s boss Angat Singh, an Afghan Sikh who goes by the name “Tannibhai”, had deputed Omar to call the Chaudharys and ask after them.
Since then, Omar, who would call his parents in Lahore every day as he left home for work, has called Kamlesh’s parents instead.
Their initial calls were short. Savdhanbhai would struggle with his Hindi, slipping into Gujarati ever so often, while Omar held on patiently — the father’s loss didn’t need a language.
The daily calls, messages
Omar says Kamlesh and he weren’t exactly close. They were colleagues at the store — Omar, the most senior of Tannibhai’s employees, worked as the sales manager while Kamlesh handled another section in the store.
Kamlesh’s charred wedding album recovered from the crash site. (Express photo by Bhupendra Rana)
But the moment he heard about the Air India crash and that Kamlesh and Dhapuben were among the dead, something stirred. “I felt a strong grief aur main dahade mar kar roya (I cried out loud). The entire staff came running towards me and tried to console me,” he says.
On Tannibhai’s directions, Omar took Savdhanbhai’s number from Kamlesh’s roommate Dixit Patel and tried calling him. He got through a couple of days later. “I still remember his words. ‘Mera beta chala gaya.’ I knew he was crying on the other end. I didn’t know what to say and mumbled something about ‘apka beta aur hamara bhai chala gaya (your son and my brother… he is no more).’ I told him to stay strong and assured him I would call again.”
Thus began a tradition touching in its simplicity — a call between two men, asking if the other was doing alright.
“Savdhanbhai and his family are very innocent. I told him that my parents are no more; this is a relationship from God’s side. I once told him that when I used to call my parents, they would never be the first to disconnect the call. They would say ‘Allah hafiz, bye bye’, but wait for me to hang up. Savdhanbhai does the same now. We talk every day, sometimes briefly due to work or other constraints, but we connect every day in some form,” says Omar.
A total of 260 people died in the crash, including 19 on the ground. (Express File Photo)
The youngest of ten siblings, Omar lost his brother and father within a month of each other in 2022, followed by his mother’s death the following year. “I was not very close to my parents because of our age gap. Savdhanbhai is not much older; in fact I am closer in age to Savdhanbhai than to Kamlesh. Kamlesh used to say his father felt more like a friend. Maybe that’s how I feel towards Savdhanbhai now,” he says, talking of a relationship that he struggles to define. Does he feel a son’s responsibility towards Savdhanbhai? A friend’s? Hard to say, he says. Perhaps, it’s a bond best left untagged.
Like most good relationships, theirs grew slowly, sustained by the daily calls and WhatsApp messages. For the first few months, Omar showed up every single day, before Savdhanbhai began reciprocating.
“Gradually, the relationship grew. Now I pour my heart out to him. He also shares everything about Kamlesh’s mother, brother Hitesh, Kamlesh’s in-laws. When I see him in pain, I feel terrible — he has already gone through so much trauma. How much can a man suffer?” says Omar.
The two share the occasional video call, and photographs — of Omar’s life in London, with his wife and two children, of Savdhanbhai’s fields with freshly sowed musk melon, chillies and lady’s fingers, of Kamlesh and Dhapuben from their wedding album. Even Savdhanbhai’s thali with bajri roti and guar sabzi. “He asked me what we had for lunch today and I told him guar. He didn’t know what that was, so I sent him a photo,” says Savdhanbhai, whose eyes alternate between welling up when he talks of Kamlesh and Dhapuben, and crinkling into a smile at the mention of Omar.
The day in March, when Omar shaved his beard for the first time, he came on a video call with Savdhanbhai. “I told Omarbhai, ‘Aap bahut achhe lag rahe ho, aap ko kisi ki nazar na lage (You look good, God bless you),” he says.
Since Kamlesh’s death, Samadhanbhai and Ratniben have decided to lead their lives just the way their son would have wanted. “Before Kamlesh left, he had promised to buy us a car on Diwali. From the money we got as compensation, we bought a car last Diwali, just as he wished,” says Savdhanbhai. The white SUV now stands parked outside their house, under a tin roof.
Savdhanbhai also used a part of the compensation he got — Rs 25 lakh as interim relief, Rs 1 crore ex-gratia through the Tata Trust, and Rs 4 lakh from the Gujarat CM Relief Fund — to repay the Rs 55 lakh that he had borrowed from his family and friends to send Kamlesh to London in 2022.
“Kamlesh would keep telling me to think differently. That is how, two months ago, I started growing muskmelon on a part of our 10-bigha land where we grow mustard and castor. Recently, we tried red chillies. I researched and found out that the seeds of pumpkin and muskmelon fetch a higher value than the fruits themselves. All this keeps me busy, it’s just a way of staying distracted. We also sold three of our five buffaloes and nine of our 10 cows; Kamlesh always said it was too much of a burden for us,” says Savdhanbhai, his eyes brimming up again.
Each of these decisions have come after a call to Omar. “I discuss everything with him. Say, if I have to sow a new crop, I talk to him about my plans before I go ahead. He doesn’t really know much about farming, but tells me, ‘Go ahead, if you do it, it will be good. Khuda apko barkat dega (God will bless prosperity on you).’ I showed him pictures and videos of the chilli, muskmelon, and watermelon I sowed,” says Savdhanbhai.
Omar Ali, Kamlesh’s Pakistani’s co-worker at the London store, has been calling Kamlesh’s father in Banaskantha, Gujarat, for a year now
Last month, Savdhanbhai couriered a 10-kg packet to Omar’s London address – homemade ghee, digestive churan and two packets of dry kachori for Omar’s wife Sameena. Just the way he would for Kamlesh.
“Omarbhai asked me how much I had spent on the courier and I said, ‘Apne rishte ke kitne paise hain (Can you put a price on our relationship)?’ Poor Omar, he could not reply. After that he has never mentioned money,” he smiles.
A few months ago, Omar sent a blazer and a shirt for Kamlesh’s younger brother Hitesh, and a sweater for his mother Ratniben.
These days, Savdhanbhai, who dropped out of school after Class 11, sends messages in English too. “I have learnt to translate text. I translate from Gujarati to English first, then translate it back to Gujarati to ensure there are no errors before I send them to Omar and his family,” he says.
One of the messages he wrote to Omar in English reads, “I was in a noisy place when you called, so I regret not picking up the phone. I went to do some necessary work. You will be fine, Thank you,” with a folded-hands emoji.
With Kamlesh gone, Savdhanbhai’s phone is his keeper of memories. Of the many text messages he holds close to his heart are those he exchanged with Tannibhai, Kamlesh’s employer in London.
One of these, written by Tannibhai in Gujarati using Google Translate, reads, “Tame kem cho? Kamlesh na bhai kem che? Badhu theek chali rahyu chhe ne (How are you? How is Kamlesh’s brother? Is everything going well)?”
For the last 12 months, Tannibhai has been transferring Rs 50,000 to Savdhanbhai’s account — a quiet gesture for a “hardworking and honest boy and his family”.
Speaking to The Indian Express from London, Tannibhai says, “I have also created a fundraising page where we have raised £2,800 from my family and friends. I have not shared this with Savdhanbhai yet, but I plan to send this amount to him either for Hitesh’s wedding or when I am not able to support them monthly.”
A year since the loss
On June 12, the anniversary of the tragedy, Savdhanbjhai, Ratniben and the rest of the family plan to visit the crash site in Ahmedabad.
Savdhanbhai says, “Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, think of Kamlesh and Dhapuben and feel so helpless. We are farmers; we never thought our son would go abroad. Before leaving, he had told us he would take us to London once. Big dreams… all shattered now,” he says, unlocking his phone to show a few videos of Kamlesh that Omar has edited and sent, with instructions on how to upload them as his WhatsApp status on June 12.
One of these videos has a photo of Kamlesh and Dhapuben, accompanied by a voiceover that says, ‘Beautiful memories are all we have left, they will stay with us for a lifetime, rest in peace’. Another is a montage of stills — Kamlesh striking poses, and one with Dhapuben. In the background is a song from the Bollywood film Border, a plea to the wind to find a loved one, “Aye guzarne wali hawa bata/ Mera itna kam karegi kya/ Mujhe chhod ke jo chala gaya/ Use dhoondh la…”