Hard Memories !

Couple of days back, when I was enjoying my weekend at Rishikesh, while we were enjoying our rafting, the tourist guide just asked us to corner the raft as there was a “fresh accident” .One car had drowned in Ganges which had a family and after much efforts the children & driver were rescued. A dead body was lying & another was missing. The dead body was of the father, & one missing was of mother. It was shocking, disturbing, but more than anything else, it was unfortunate. I personally did not know the family, but it disturbed me. "Could've-been-us" feeling! The family was driving to Neelkanth & probably lost control of the car at a turn, n fell into river.probably, the driver dint have enough of sleep or he was too careless to lower the speed limit . eventually the car crashed & all this happened. Pity. Foolishness? Waste!


Couple of years back, I would have put the entire blame on the foolhardiness of that driver, but somehow it does not seem right anymore. Most of us are not aware how easy it is to lose our lives. Just a little misfortune and there is no tomorrow! Most of the time, most of us do not give any thoughts to such possibilities and the consequences. Moreover, it sets you thinking. One of our professor, whose tongue can sting at times, said, “This is perhaps the most mindless way of dying." And I couldn't agree more. Death if fearful, it’s not easy to digest it.

But still the memoirs of children haunt my mind, the life just moves on, its was bloody normal for me too. We came back, next day went to office, did the chores, but the children who lost parents, the trip will have radically different reminiscence for them.

More fortunately than unfortunately, early in my driving days, when I was still a noob, I had a little accident. I landed safely and absolutely no harm was done. But that incident never left me, it's always there at the back of my mind. Result: I developed as an extra cautious driver. Of course, I've had my moments of madness. Fortunately, I survived all of them.

There is not much to say. The sad incident can end up being just a statistical data point, unless we take a lesson from it. The human life is not that cheap to be ended as a data figure. Sincere appeal to all motorists - please drive carefully