There’s something strangely comforting about routine. The way we pack a bag before a
journey. The quiet rituals of airport security. The prayers whispered as we fasten our seat
belts. The conversations we plan to have once we land. We humans are creatures of
plans—planning the next weekend, the next career move, the next festival. Somewhere in
the scaffolding of these future-bound dreams, we forget that life is never promised. Not
even the next hour.
But then, something cracks. A crash. A fall. A bullet. And the world shifts. Just like that, all
the what-nexts turn into never-agains.
They say the Dreamliner was barely in the air for a few minutes. It was meant to be a
long-haul flight—Air India 117 from Ahmedabad to London. A flight like thousands of
others every week. Some were going for work, some for weddings, some for a new life
abroad. And some, maybe, for their first-ever international holiday. But that aircraft never
made it past the city skyline. A mechanical failure. An emergency turbine deployed. And
then—fire. Metal. Smoke. Silence.
Two hundred and forty-one people on board. One survivor. A man named Vishwaskumar,
who walked out of the wreckage barefoot, dazed, with only minor injuries. He lost his
brother in that same crash. One moment, he was adjusting his seatbelt; the next, he was
pulling his sibling’s charred body from the debris. Grief and survival—married in a single
breath. On the ground, it was worse. The plane tore into a medical college hostel. Twenty-
nine innocent people—students, janitors, a couple of professors—were killed simply
because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. A city paused. The country
gasped. And mothers, across states and time zones, began calling their children just to
hear them breathe.
Guptkashi doesn’t often make the news. Nestled quietly in the Garhwal Himalayas, it is a
sacred space—a base for pilgrims heading to Kedarnath, a land of silence and snow, of
devotion and disbelief. But last week, a helicopter ferrying five people—a pilot, two
Kedarnath-bound passengers, and two crew members—went down. Locals said it was
foggy. There are whispers of an engine fault. The chopper spiraled and smashed into a
ridge, exploding on impact. There were no survivors. One passenger had just completed
his pilgrimage. He had thanked God moments before boarding the flight back. We like to
think that places of prayer are protected. That the divine wraps itself around believers like
a shawl. But God, too, watches helplessly sometimes.
But perhaps the most chilling of all was Pahalgam. A name that once evoked visions of
pine forests, saffron air, and pony rides now feels sharp on the tongue. A group of tourists
—ordinary families on a summer break—were picnicking in the meadows of Baisaran, just
a short hike from the town. They were laughing. One couple had just celebrated an
anniversary. Another had brought their baby for her first mountain trip. And then, without
warning, gunmen appeared from the trees. Armed, masked, and merciless. They asked
for names. For faiths. And then opened fire. Twenty-six people were killed. At least a
dozen more wounded. A few survived by pretending to be dead. One man ran into the
woods, his wife bleeding in his arms. A local pony guide tried to shield a child. He was
shot in the head. Why? Because they were Hindu? Because they were outsiders?
Because hate finds a way to seep into even the most peaceful places? There is no
justification. Only mourning. And a sickening reminder that terror doesn’t knock.
What connects these three incidents—thousands of miles apart—is not just tragedy. It’s
the suddenness of it all. The ordinary-ness of the moments before. A cup of tea before a
flight. A photo taken beside a mountain. A call saying “I’ll be home soon.” And then—
gone. It’s a terrible kind of irony. That in the most advanced aircraft, the most beautiful
valleys, the most sacred skies—life still hangs by a thread. We often forget how much of
our safety depends on things beyond us: a pilot’s reflexes. A mechanic’s diligence. A
controller’s alertness. A stranger’s ideology. We forget that being alive is, in itself, a
miracle.
For every name in the headlines, there are hundreds behind the scenes: a mother who will
forever stare at the empty side of the dining table. A child who doesn’t understand why
her dad won’t come back from his trip. A husband who watches his wife’s last moments
again and again on his phone, trying to freeze time. They say time heals. But some
wounds don’t want to be healed. They want to be remembered. And rightly so. Because
these were not just statistics. They were people. With quirks, routines, and dreams. With
songs they loved. With Instagram drafts they never posted. With lives that deserved more
chapters.
We can’t undo what happened. But we can allow it to change us. Maybe we start by
paying attention. To how we build our cities. To the quality of the machines we entrust our
lives to. To the silent cracks in our systems that only appear when something goes fatally
wrong. But perhaps, even more than that, we learn to live differently. To be gentler with
each other. To love loudly. To check on our friends. To take fewer things for granted. To
recognise, every now and then, the quiet miracle of just being alive.
There’s a strange beauty in how brief life is. It’s what makes sunsets magical. Hugs
precious. Laughter addictive. Maybe we were never meant to live forever—just deeply.
Just meaningfully. So say that I love you. Book that silly trip. Forgive your father. Dance
barefoot. Smile at strangers. Thank the flight attendant. Tip your cab driver. Write that
poem. Be kind, even if the world isn’t. Because life doesn’t wait. Because sometimes, all
it takes is a crash, a fall, or a bullet—and everything changes. So while you’re here, really
be here.
For the lives lost in Ahmedabad, Guptkashi, and Pahalgam—may your stories never be
forgotten. May your memories teach us how to live.