Mukti Patel has huddled with family and friends at her parents’ Richmond, Virginia, home since her dad, sister and two other relatives went missing in the catastrophic flash floods along the Nepal-China border.
She knows the hotel they were staying in with their tour group on a two-week excursion to the region was swept away. But as she shared memories of them yesterday, she caught herself.
“I shouldn’t talk in past tense yet,” she said. “We don’t know anything.”
Patel, 27, said her dad, Umesh Kumar, 56, had wanted to make the trip for many years and traveled through India to Nepal, where he was joined by her sister, Akanksha, 32, and her sister’s husband, Ishan, 32.
Ishan’s mom, Shilpa, 59, was also on the trek. Ishan and Shilpa Patel have dual Canadian and US citizenship while Umesh Kumar and Akanksha Patel are Canadian citizens, according to Mukti Patel.
Akanksha Patel is a psychiatrist who wants to break stigma around mental health problems, her sister said.
“Everything I’ve done in life has been off the blueprint of my sister,” Mukti Patel said between tears in a phone interview. “There’s no ounce of meanness in her.”
Her father is a joyous person who helped victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, and her brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, has brought great happiness to her sister’s life, she said.
Ishan Patel turned 32 on Wednesday, and the family called to wish him a happy birthday. That was their last contact.