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As I woke up in the morning of May 22, my family had gathered in the living room, their faces glued to the T.V. screen and a myriad of emotions displaying on everyone`s face from shock to horror and finally sympathy registering. A plane crash claiming the lives of 150 odd people turned our lives inside out and left us hanging in there with a question, “Is this all that is there to life??”
There was no chaos at home that day, no breakfast bustle, no one hurrying to be punctual, no one initiating the daily chores and no one complaining as usual about the hot Mangalorean weather. Everything seemed to stand still and time froze for everyone in our living room and all that flickered was the blazing flame on the T.V. screen fuelled by fresh human bodies and I knew hell had unleashed on that chilly Saturday morning.
Air India flight IX-812 carrying 158 passengers and 6 crew members from Dubai was to land on the soil of Mangalore on Saturday, May 22. Everything was going as predicted by the pilot until ‘Fate’ took the upper hand. No sooner did the flight touched the runway, it grew a mind of its own, went way out-of-control, broke into halves and plunged into the cliff. It killed over 150 people including the crew members.
A father robbed of his child, a wife robbed of her husband and children, a boy orphaned, security snatched away from him like it’s nobody`s business and left him with nothing but debris of the plane and burnt bodies of his loved ones whom he scarcely recognises anymore. Young or old, rich or poor, black or brown, healthy or weak, death knows no bounds. The Qur`an says in Surah Al-Imran (3:185) “Every soul shall taste death” and in Surah An-Nisaa (4:78) “Wherever you are death will find you out. Even if you are in towers built up strong and high.”
Imagine waking up one morning to find your mother or father or your siblings burnt to ashes. It’s not something that happens on a daily basis for anyone. Would you not bargain everything you have, put your life at stake and try to bring them back and get things back to normal? Or maybe if you could take a sneak-peek into the future would you not be a better son/daughter, a better sibling, a better friend, a better human?!!
Ah! But fate is a funny thing. It doesn`t let you have a glimpse of the future. It gives you no hint of what it will be throwing at you next. It can be a straight ball or a slow ball or a fast ball or a curve ball. Whatever it is you have to prepare yourself. If you are a coward you dodge it but if you are a fighter you catch and throw it right back. Then again, how do you fight fate when it robs you of everything you have and leaves you in the middle of nowhere? What do you do when you are stranded and have no one to watch your back or no one to run to for comfort? What would YOU do??
Money can buy a house but it can`t buy a home. It can buy a body guard but it can`t buy security. It can buy food but it can`t buy appetite. It can buy lovely things but it can`t buy love. Everything that happens in and around us has a lesson to teach. This incident teaches us a very important fact and that is ‘Death’. You can have all the money, all the riches and luxuries of life. But when you die, you leave behind everything you possessed, everything you cherished and carry with you only your deeds, both good and bad. Death is just one step away from us. It can come with or without a warning. Question is, are we ready for it?
This plane crash claiming over 150 lives of innocent people in a fraction of a second changed the face of humanity. From a journalist to a farmer, police officer to a nurse, carpenter to a fire fighter, social worker to a layman, everyone and anyone, with no masks to cover their face from the smoke and no gloves to cover their hand, rolled up their sleeves and got down to business. They stayed put at ground zero, helped carry the burnt bodies, clear the fuselage and search for the missing black box from dawn to dusk. Language barriers broken, religion barrier put behind, everyone came out of their way to help their brother in distress. Like my best friend always says, “At the end of the day, we are all there for one another”. Hats off to you brave men. In the middle of cruelty, despair and losses, 8 people miraculously escaped and survived the plane crash, showing that the ray of hope still exists.
“....There are people dying, if you care enough for the living, make a better place for you and for me...” were the lines sung by Michael Jackson from his song ‘Heal the World’, as a tribute to those people who lost their lives in the war. Today I write this article as tribute to those lost lives and the grieving souls. May their souls rest in peace and may God accept all their good deeds. Ameen.
The author is a student of BA Journalism at St Aloysius College, Mangalore
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