The Hairpin Bend

Screeech. The brakes of my bus screeched. Everything that happened after that held me emotionally captive, captive in sad thoughts that screamed at me. Thoughts that made me think and messages that hit me so hard about how fragile life is! There was a huge traffic jam in the hairpin bend ahead, voices that panicked about numerous deaths, and ambulances racing past me one after the other. I was witnessing it all from across the road, through a window. All of us passengers were told not to look at that side. Not to look at death. Overwhelmed with shock, I shut my eyes close. It was shock. Not fear. Shock. In the background, I was able to hear people inform the police about a bus toppling down after clashing with another. There was a huge queue of vehicles ahead of us. I shut my ears tight when the sounds of numerous ambulance alarms grew louder and louder.

I didn’t want to shrug this shock off. It conveyed a message to me, a message that became clearer the more I put my thought into it. “Live the moment.”, We say. It’s a paradox. You can either be completely carefree of the past and future or you might have a million wishes on your bucket list and be caught off-guard by danger when everything comes crashing down in a quarter of a second.

I looked around at families who had come wanting for of a weekend getaway. And I saw a bus with all its windows shatter. Men, women, kids, ambulances, police, first aid kits, blood, broken bones, oxygen cylinders, screams, wails, people struggling to breath and writhing in pain — I witnessed it all. I was not a passenger in that bus but I put myself in their shoes. What wrong did they do? Should we say life is ruthless or blame it on god or imprison the driver who was himself the first casualty. But then where is God? Who is God? God wasn’t there. There were no miracles that set things right there. People still bled, the wounds bled nonstop, and death arrived at the spot at a velocity that rised by the second. So where was God? Why was he not helping? But that’s not the point. Blame games can wait.

The police, nurses and the public came running to rescue the wounded. And I witnessed Humanity, it soothed me. Goodness in people still exist. If only we all believed more in humanity than the almighty, we would become our own gaurdian angels.

I was able to see stretchers carried in and out of the area. I thought about those people, anyone among them, what would’ve they been thinking before this happened? They were on their way for a weekend getaway. They would’ve probably thought about the places to see, where to have food, what to have for food, that it’s getting late and dark, and about the place they would stay in. They might have thought about how they wanted the trip to have been, about how to spend their time there but then all of a sudden, in just a couple of ticking seconds, they ended up smashing their heads against their hard seats and the next thing they know? They were in hospitals with tubes stuck in them. Some of them in the verge of death and the others already dead!

Those Alive would’ve cried, regretted, or might have felt miserable about all the things they didn’t do. They would’ve wanted just one chance and would’ve been ready to do ANYTHING to get it, to get back to life. To run back to their families — to their parents and kids. They would’ve desperately wanted to live the remaining of their lives. But then, was there God to make it possible? Nobody knows. Nobody would’ve known if they could’ve lived, not even themselves.

And I thought about what would have happened to me if it were me in that bus, completely oblivious to death coming my way. What would have I done? What would have been my final thoughts? Or should I say regrets?

Would it be about not making my parents proud? Or would it be about not finding true love? Just for a minute there, a warning sign in me showed me what I cared about the most. And I realized just then that I was not scared of death. Rather, I was scared about NOT living. Read that again.

Priorities change, responsibilities increase. But unfulfilled wishes and a life unlived terrifies me. I am not scared of death and neither should you be. What sends chills down my spine is imagining an end with regrets, and this massacre taught me that come what may, “I should have" or “I could have" should play NO ROLE in the days of my life. Because a life unlived equals a life worth not living at all. Read that again.

So, have no regrets, what so ever. Do whatever the hell makes you happy. It’s true that you only live once and it’s also true that life is very very unpredictable. For what it’s worth, make your life count and when death approaches you, make sure you DON’T have a to-do list with ‘should have(s)' and ‘could have(s)’. Remember, you were born for a reason. So make it count!

— Aishwarya Rao