Friends of an old batch of Sri Vivekananda High School, Pullad, rang themselves up in panic as news flashed about the death of a Malayali nurse in the Ahmedabad flight crash on Thursday. It was their friend Ranjitha Gopakumar. Though many of them had lost touch since the school days, Ranjitha’s cheerful face was hard to forget for many of them. As her photo began to appear, they called each other in shock and disbelief.

Jeeja Devi was her classmate till 10th and also during the first two years of graduation at BAM College, Thuruthicad. “She was a very lively girl during the school days. We all were good friends, as we got married and moved on, we lost touch, but we had some great memories at school,” said Jeeja Devi.

They were together for BSc Botany at Thuruthicad. “She was very focused and wanted to be independent. She dropped out of graduation in her second year and enrolled for BSc nursing. It was one of my old batch mates who told me about the crash. She asked me to check the news and when her name was flashed on screen, it was heart-breaking,” said Devi who now lives in Alappuzha.

Ranjitha always had plans for her life and she always ensured that she fulfilled them. Soon after completing her nursing course from Pandalam, she took up jobs in various hospitals before she landed a job at a hospital in Salalah, Oman. She then cleared the PSC examination and was posted at Kozhencherry, government hospital. “A home was her dream, that’s why she again went abroad and managed to find a job in the UK. She came home on a 5-day leave to complete some official process with the Health department,” said Anilkumar, a neighbour.

Ranjitha was excited about her new home which is being constructed at Pullad. She was planning to work for some more years in the UK and then return to her two children; Induchoodan and Ithika. The children stay with her mother Thulasi. Her two brothers; Ranjith and Ratheesh will leave for Ahmedabad on Friday. “The family has been communicated that a DNA test is required to identify the body. It is extremely painful for that family,” said Unnikrishnan, ward member.