“He wondered if he was going to find me alive”
Very quickly, his photo is found everywhere. Her husband moves heaven and earth to hear from her. He then urgently requests a visa to join her in Europe, which the French embassy will grant him. The rest of the family takes care of her daughter, then 10 years old, and her 13 and a half year old son.
Before boarding, her husband phones the hospital. “The doctors told him that my condition was deteriorating. Throughout the flight, he wondered if he was going to find me alive, ”underlines the ex-stewardess, whose soft and calm voice barely betrays the emotion of her moist eyes. She is then plunged into an artificial coma and it is behind glass that her husband discovers her and lets out her tears.
On March 30, the doctors tried to wake Nidhi Chaphekar from her deep sleep and finally allowed her husband to enter her room. Encased in an antibacterial suit, the latter does not dare to touch her. “Talk to him,” the doctors then advise him.
“After 23 days of artificial coma, I opened my eyes. My husband walked into my room, but he came straight out. Seeing a prostrate, hairless person, he thought it was someone else. “Reassured by a nurse, “he asked God not to let me see the shock it caused him to see me like this (…) and entered smiling. However, the mother of their children does not recognize it, worse she does not react.
The shock caused him to temporarily lose his memory of the events. Today, four years are still missing from his memories, which are gone. “I make errors of date, when I communicate… For example, I said yesterday that I had to go to Amsterdam, whereas it was Antwerp. »
The consequences are numerous for the forties. For his health, of course. “I was so burned that when I was admitted to the hospital, the doctors thought I had black skin. They took away my jewels, which I had many, to treat me. I had a bracelet that I didn’t want them to cut, so I took it off my wrist myself. My burnt skin went with it and only then did they realize I wasn’t black. Her body now leans to the right, as she has one leg shorter than the other. “I suffer from pain in the back, the shoulders; they had my gallbladder removed, I haven’t had my period for nine months. I still have a fibrous mass of seven centimeters, but I no longer want to have an operation. I still have a piece of metal lodged in my eye socket.
Difficulties finding a job
The shock wave of the attack is also psychological, social and financial. “In India, to fly, you have to be beautiful, presentable, not have a scar, and that’s no longer my case. Since the company that employed him at the time no longer exists, the sector has closed its doors to him. “They are afraid that I still have psychological problems. I am told that it would be better if I worked in another field. I hear that all the time even though I am not responsible for what happened to me. »
But Nidhi Chaphekar insists above all on the suffering of his family. “My daughter told me that she was asked every day at school how her mum was doing. As she didn’t know how to answer, she shook her head then went to lock herself in the toilets to cry. In the evening, she buried her head in a pillow to scream her anger. “For his little sister, the eldest had to” become a parent at a very young age “. Athlete, the teenager gives up badminton, cricket and basketball after the attack of which his mother is the victim. He falls into depression and takes sleeping pills. “In all of this, it is the children who suffer the most”, underlines the mother of the family.
“It was only 100 days after (the attacks, editor’s note) that I came home. During this period, my husband took care of everything. He carried a heavy burden,” she adds.
“I thank God for being here, but we would like to close this chapter. My husband knows what I’m going through, but I don’t tell my other family members. I don’t want to be in the complaint. »