Anupam- The Dreamer

Today marks the one year since the dastardly terrorist attack happened in Pahalgam last year, which took the lives of 26 people. Each of them left behind their family mourning for them, their lives completely shattered, and their story cut short by an untimely, unlucky and unfortunate incident. Every single individual had their own story of life. Some came for honeymoon, some came for spending time with family, some came to J&K for the first time etc etc.

Similar thing came up when Air India flight AI 171 en route to London from Ahmedabad crashed in 2025 leaving 241 out of 242 people dead, within few seconds of taking-off. Nobody in that unfortunate flight had ever in their dreams imagined that such thing could happen to them! Otherwise they would have aborted their journey that day! Every single person and every single family had their own dreams to go abroad, for work, for vacation, for meeting family etc. Every person meant the world for his/her family. They all had different ambitions, dreams and plans for themselves. But now, after that unfortunate event, what remains other than “their story”! Now, we read about them in news about their background, their upbringing, their jobs etc. All tell a different story which had a very terrible end. What if the flight didn’t crash that day? What if somehow they had postponed their plans that day? What if the flight itself got cancelled if the technical fault was detected earlier? Every story could have been very different and could have gone in a very different direction but for that incident.

Now, if we delve deep into such events or even when we think about other people who have lived before us, it comes to realization that everyone is living their own story in their own way! And when after they are gone, they remain in our memory or just fade away with time or are made immortal if their story is documented in a book/movie or if people identify the person as a legendary human being. Rest what remains of us? It’s nothing more than that! People become memory and a story after death. That story can be interesting or it may not be so. It is upto us when we are alive how we live our own lives and what story are we going to leave behind us. Every incident in our lives is a sub-part to our story.

At this point, I am reminded of a beautiful song sung by Jagjit Singh, which tells the story of our lives in a nutshell. It goes like this:

एक प्यार का नग़मा है, मौजों की रवानी है
ज़िंदगी और कुछ भी नहीं, तेरी-मेरी कहानी है

कुछ पा कर खोना है, कुछ खो कर पाना है
जीवन का मतलब तो आना और जाना है

दो पल के जीवन से एक उम्र चुरानी है
ज़िंदगी और कुछ भी नहीं, तेरी-मेरी कहानी है

तू धार है नदियाँ की, मैं तेरा किनारा हूँ
तू मेरा सहारा है, मैं तेरा सहारा हूँ

आँखों में समंदर है, आशाओं का पानी है
ज़िंदगी और कुछ भी नहीं, तेरी-मेरी कहानी है

Till next story….