MEGHRAJ: A year ago, 18-year-old Aryan Asari was an anonymous schoolboy from a remote village in Gujarat's Aravalli district who had never seen an aircraft from such close quarters.
Today, the teenager is known as the "Aeroplane Boy" across his village and neighbouring areas, thanks to a mobile phone video that accidentally captured the final moments of the ill-fated Air India flight that crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12 last year, killing 260 persons.
But fame came at a cost. Aryan now says he has not filmed a single aircraft since that day and is still not ready to board one himself.
"I went to Ahmedabad for the first time and saw a plane from such a close distance. I took out my mobile phone and started recording because I wanted to show it to my friends back in the village," Aryan recalled during an interaction with PTI ahead of the first anniversary of the tragedy.
Standing on the terrace of his father's rented accommodation in Ahmedabad's Meghaninagar, close to the airport, Aryan was fascinated by the sight of a low-flying aircraft. What began as a casual video soon turned into one of the most widely circulated recordings of the disaster.
"Suddenly, the plane started coming down and then crashed into a huge fireball. I was terrified. I had never imagined something like that could happen in front of my eyes," he said.
Aryan had arrived in Ahmedabad on the morning of the crash to spend some time with his father, Magan Asari, a retired Army soldier who was then working as a security guard at a Metro station. The visit was also meant to help him buy textbooks after securing admission to Class 12.
Instead, within hours of reaching the city, he became an eyewitness to one of India's worst aviation disasters. The video spread rapidly on social media and television channels.
After the clip went viral, mediapersons started flocking his father's rented house, and Aryan was on almost all the TV channels giving interviews.
A few days later, he returned to his native village in Meghraj taluka of Arvalli district and resumed his studies. He later cleared his Class 12 board examination and is now seeking admission to a college.
While life has largely returned to normal, his identity in the region has changed permanently.
"When I came back to my village, everyone wanted to see the video. My friends told me that I had become famous," he said with a shy smile.
"Recently, I went to attend a wedding and many people came up to me asking, 'Are you the same aeroplane boy?' I told them yes," Aryan said.
Yet the tragedy has also left behind lingering fears. "After that incident, I stopped filming aeroplanes on my mobile phone. Now I am scared that if I record a plane, it may also crash," he admitted.
The fear extends beyond his camera lens. Like many young people from rural Gujarat, Aryan dreams of travelling abroad someday. But the prospect of flying remains daunting.
"I want to go abroad in the future, but right now I don't have the courage to sit inside an aeroplane," he added.