It was the birds chirping in the morning that made me feel alive, yet another day. I woke up, with all my disappointments, dreams, faith and commotion I had, recollecting all my emotions to channelize them for the fruitful day. I reached my office with a big smile on my face challenging the adversities anticipating some learning, certain development, a little satisfaction if I could grasp from the situations I had in hand. But the unexpected fell on the very first step I took and I couldn’t pass by.
It was the collapse of a multi-storey building where my friend resided. A building with two wings, four floors, 12 happy families and 50-60 people or shall I say 50-60 dreams living by. With each brick that washed off eroded those moments that they cherished together, the celebration of the first cry of a newborn, the beginning of a newly married couple and the sorrow of the last breath of an oldie. And in minutes that home to those of 50-60 lives turned out to be a cemetery where the living died of suffocation, under the debris, crying in pain and sorrow. And the lucky ones who were not with their loved ones escaped death but were dying every second breathing the ashes of their loved ones helplessly. They lived a thousand lives when the rescue team pulled up the victims’ expecting that they were their loved ones and died a million deaths realizing that the one rescued was not the one they expected.
I know it is a dark scene to be recited, but this is the ugly truth. With every word I am typing, I am shivering in pain and sorrow. And I am drafting it with a purpose of not getting forgotten. I want no tears of disappointment in your eyes, but a conviction from all of us that no greed, no negligence would be tolerated at the cost of a life. Though the foundation of these lives has got a crack but as a team, we can build a foundation that is indestructible. No words of sympathy can bring a change in these lives but a change in our thought process can control the darkest scenario. The pain, the sufferings is a ladder which is to be crossed by everyone individually but the strength the ladder can uphold, to be constructed is in our hands. There is no teacher better than life and no punishment worse than a loss of a closed one. Let not the fate decide our lives but our decisions must. The culprit is in some of us, amongst us and beside us. It’s high time to confront him. And there should be no fear, no shame to punish him. Let us come together to make things rightly done for the future rather than crying over the issues that are history today. And my message to the youth of today is that ‘No sparrow falls to the ground without your FATHER (GOD) knowing it, it is us who are digging our own graves.’