My heart goes out to the 14-year-old south-Indian boy schooling in Dubai who lost his entire family in the air crash at the Mangalore airport. What is worse, he was able to identify the body of only his mother. The bodies of his father and two younger siblings remain unidentified. The bodies of all those who died in the accident are charred beyond recognition, making DNA testing necessary to zero in on their identities. To compound the woes of this hapless adolescent, trying desperately to cope with a tragedy the enormity of which has still to hit him, they were not able to find matching bodies of the ages of his younger siblings.
When this boy bade farewell to his family at the airport and saw his kid sister wave goodbye to him as they entered the travellers-only zone, little did he realise at that time that he would never see any of them again. Even the thought must not have occurred to him that in a matter of hours his entire world would come crumbling down. That he will be orphaned with no siblings for company along life's unpredictable pathway. He would never have imagined any of this in his wildest dreams. I cannot help remembering little Moshe whose entire family was mercilessly killed by terrorists at Nariman House in Mumbai on 26/11. In a matter of a couple of days, people nearest and dearest to this toddler had left him alone to fend for himself in this cruel world.
Well friends, that is how precarious life can be. I lost my brother-in-law in a road accident four years ago. He was 28 years old at the time and had been married for barely two years. He was returning home from work on his mobike when he was knocked down by a speeding truck, and died on the spot. He was a bright young man who aspired to make it big in life. He had everything going for him when his life was snuffed out in an instant. My friend lost his father in the most bizarre manner. He stood atop a stool to clean the glass window pane of his sixth floor apartment one morning, lost his balance and fell out of the window! Isn't it amazing how precarious life can be?
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It's really very disturbing, Cliff to read about such deeply painful incidents. Yesterday I read a story of a two-year-old who lost his mother in November and his father and three siblings in the Mangalore air crash on Saturday. All his relatives from his mother's side were killed in the road accident in which he lost his mother. And he has no relative on his father's side to take care of him, except his septuagenarian grandparents. How tragic!
ReplyDeleteJust the point I was trying to make, Ferry. Our lives, or those of our loved ones, can be so precariously poised. The resultant sorrow and suffering, not to speak of myriad other miseries, pushed people like Albert Einstein towards Deism from Theism. He could not handle the concept of a God who was "raheem" and "rehman" with what he saw around him.
ReplyDeleteso very true Cliff ... I couldn't agree less
ReplyDeleteThanks Mahen, for your feedback. :)
ReplyDeleteA loss as terrible as death can never be understood by man. It comes suddenly without any warning. But the pain lasts forever.
ReplyDeleteYes, very true, Sonali. Thanks for leaving your comment on my blog.
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