Hyderabad: Life is nothing but a delay of the inevitable – death postponed. Yet, how few ponder over this truth? Beneath its charm, excitement, ambitions, and accomplishments, life carries a startling fragility. We make plans, chase goals, and dream big – yet in the space of a heartbeat, everything can change.
Recent incidents have shown us heart-wrenching examples of how uncertain this worldly life truly is. People left home for a vacation, a celebration, a flight, or a classroom – and never returned. Their dreams, like candles in the wind, were extinguished without warning.
Consider the tourists who flew out for a much-awaited holiday, looking forward to blue skies and sandy shores. They had checked into their hotels, planned their itineraries, posted their excitement on social media – and then, without provocation or warning, were caught in a terrorist attack. Life ended not on a battlefield, but in a resort they chose to escape from stress.
Some joined jubilant crowds to celebrate RCB’s maiden IPL title win – only for the event to turn into a tragedy. A joyful gathering dissolved into chaos, and what was meant to be a memory for a lifetime turned into a stampede of horror. Shoes, flags, and banners littered the Chinnaswamy Stadium alongside the fallen. Parents, children, friends – all lost in moments they never imagined would be their last.
Air travel, once a symbol of modern progress and connection, too has betrayed our trust. How often do people board flights – for work, for family reunions, for leisure, expecting to land a few hours later with their lives continuing as usual? But some never make it. Technical failures, weather conditions, or worse, man-made errors have claimed hundreds of innocent lives mid-air. The other day’s Air India flight crash in Ahmedabad is a case in point. Each one of the passengers had plans, routines, and expectations. None thought their last photograph would be the one taken in the airport lounge.
And then there’s the unfathomable. Students, quietly studying in their hostel room, far away from the hustle and bustle of the world, preparing for a test or reading a novel – get crushed beneath a crashing plane. What were their signs? There were none. Because life doesn’t always offer warnings. Death doesn’t always knock.
Every such tragedy – be it in Palestine, Pokhran or Manipur – reminds us that death often arrives uninvited, in the middle of life. It is always shocking, always final. What is shocking is the realisation that those who died never saw it coming. They did not have a moment to say goodbye, to repent, to prepare. And yet this is the reality that stares each one of us in the face.
Face unpredictability
One response is despair. Another is denial. But the most meaningful response is reflection – and perhaps, return. A return to humility, to gratitude, and above all, to God. The Qur’an repeatedly reminds us: “Every soul shall taste death” (3:185), and “No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow, nor does any soul know in what land it will die.” (31:34). The verses are not meant to scare but to awaken. To prompt us to see beyond the illusion of permanence that this life creates. To remind us that while we may plan, only Allah’s plan prevails.
We plan for retirement, for success, for anniversaries, but how many plan for the end? Not in a morbid sense, but in a meaningful one – preparing our hearts, actions, and intentions. The Qur’an calls out again and again: “Turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.” (24:31)
Maybe it’s time to stop postponing. Time to reconnect with our Creator. To reflect on our deeds. To ask forgiveness not just from people, but from Allah. To repair broken ties, to ease another’s burden, offer our time in service. Because this moment – this very moment – is the only one we’re guaranteed.
God balances our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy, enough burdens to keep us humble, and enough hardships to keep us strong. Let us not wait for tragedy to wake us up. Let us live with purpose, with faith, with the constant awareness that our return to God is not a matter of if, but when. And may our end, whenever it comes, find us in a state of remembrance, not negligence.
We don’t control how long we live, but we can control how we live. And if we must be surprised by death, let it not surprise us in heedlessness, but in submission.
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