Turning Towards Life Through Death

I wrote this article some time back, when the Blue Line Bus Service was very frequent on the Delhi roads, which due to negligent driving had caused many a deaths and hence is being phased out compleltely from Delhi roads.  Dear reader, sharing this experience with you, which had a deep impact on me.

It was a usual morning for me. I grabbed my sandwich to nibble on the way to work, as I drove my car.  There was usual traffic on Delhi roads. I drove out of my colony to merge with the endless traffic on the main road. I began to drive in the middle lane.  I adjusted my rear view mirror and with a fleeting movement of my eye, I observed a biker with a black windcheater riding just behind me, and a Blue Line Bus behind him. (Am I driving in the bus lane or the bus is in my lane, I thought?!)  Life as usual … I picked up my sandwich to bite………and screeeeeech…….I heard a loud and thunderous sound of a bus braking suddenly.  I tilted slightly to see what happened behind me.  That bus had stopped abruptly and the biker was nowhere to see, in just two seconds time.  I was shocked; the bus had run over the biker. 

Suddenly, there was silence on the road, a road echoing with the loud horns, a few seconds back sounded deserted now. I sat there still with my eyes glued on the rear view mirror of my car, my mind showing me horrifying imaginations of death scenes. 

And, then, a miracle happened, the man with his helmet on, crawled out from the underneath of the bus.  He looked shaken but the young man soon regained his composure and moved to his right, slapped the auto driver who had pushed him in the road and moved away.

I sat there paralyzed in the middle of the road with tears flowing out of my eyes.  I had seen the terrorizing face of death so close and so sudden.

(Only after all the vehicles on the road started honking at me, did I realize that I was in tears, and blocking the way of the traffic)

Suddenly, every clutter of life sounded trivial to me, every friction, every issue in my relationships seemed petty to me, every grudge, every sulk, every grievance I had, seemed so small, so inconsequential to me.

The uncertainty of life had humbled me suddenly.  Gratitude, humility, forgiveness all quickly flowed like sparkling clear water through the dry and rough soil of my heart.

It was a life changing moment for me.  I had turned towards life through death.  I learnt to admire and cherish each moment, each day.  No, it was not the fear of death – lurking around me, and for that matter us, in different avatars, but the awareness of my being. The awareness that I am a capable human being at this point of time, capable enough to live and not just vegetate, capable enough to be happy that I decided that I will live completely, fully in each moment to come, each moment of my life.

I had turned towards life through death.

RESTLESS

PS: The post got published in Kadzilla's Lounge and my organisations magazine too.
PPS: pic coutesy :http://genna-greasley.deviantart.com