12th June 2025: The Day Time Froze

I’m still staring at that photo. A couple in their thirties maybe, with three kids, smiling, leaning in for a selfie — you can almost hear the laughter in that frozen frame. It was taken on board Air India Flight AI171, just minutes before takeoff may be. The kind of photo people click to mark a beginning — a new job, a fresh chapter, a dream waiting across the ocean. No one knew it would be the last photo they’d ever take.

June 12, 2025. Ahmedabad. A regular Thursday. A 13:39 departure to London Gatwick. 242 souls on board. A Boeing 787 Dreamliner — ironically named, because that day, it carried people not into their dreams, but straight into a nightmare so horrific, it made even headlines feel like epitaphs. Within minutes of takeoff, the aircraft dropped to a dangerously low altitude — just around 800 feet — and crashed into the BJ Medical College hostel near Civil Hospital. The very walls meant to nurture young minds turned into their tombstones.

I kept reading the news over and over. Not because I couldn’t believe it — but because my heart just wouldn’t accept it. It felt like my chest was being carved open by the reality of it. One flight — and nearly 300 lives extinguished, including bright, ambitious medical students and who had no link to the flight, no role in the story — they were just studying. Or maybe napping after lunch. Maybe whispering dreams into the phone, talking to a friend, texting a silly meme, planning the evening chai. I kept picturing their shoes lying by the hostel door… notebooks left open mid-sentence… laughter interrupted mid-air.

There’s a story that stays with me — Arjunbhai Manubhai Patoliya, a father from Gujarat. He had just lost his wife in London and returned home with her ashes. Performed the rituals in Vadiya, surrounded by grief and people who understood it. He then boarded AI171 to return to his children — the only purpose keeping him stitched to this world. The children waited, probably counting hours to his landing. But he never arrived. How do you explain to them that grief can have grief of its own?

And then, among the debris, a strange whisper of fate: one man survived. Seat 11A. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national. Some say he jumped before impact. Others say he was simply in a spot the fire didn’t reach. Whatever the reason — he lived. One name on a list that otherwise reads like a prayer gone unanswered. A miracle resting in the middle of devastation.

Equally haunting is the story of the girl who missed the flight by 10 minutes. She cried at the gate when they wouldn’t let her in. Argued. Begged. Probably cursed the system for its rigidity. Little did she know, those 10 minutes saved her life. Isn’t that what life often is? A delay we think is unfair, but later realize was grace in disguise. We complain about missed trains, postponed meetings, denied entries — never realizing they might just be divine interventions in civilian clothes.

A line I once heard keeps echoing in my head: “We don’t own time. We borrow it.” That’s never felt truer. We keep assuming life owes us more chances. More time to make that phone call. More time to forgive. More time to visit home. More time to slow down and sit with a child without a screen between us. But life — life has no contract with our plans. It doesn’t promise anything.

What do you say to a mother who sent her son off for postgrad studies and now receives a sealed box instead of a phone call? What do you say to the little girl in London whose dad never turns up at her school gate again? Or to the boy who watched his roommate vanish from the balcony they shared every morning tea on?

Air India’s CEO turned back mid-air when the news broke. The government announced compensations. Investigators from Boeing, DGCA, and international agencies began the probe. But no amount of money can rewind those few minutes. No technical report can measure the silence in those hostel corridors. No black box can capture the unspoken words that died with those passengers.

I've always believed that every tragedy carries a lesson. But this one… this one doesn’t whisper. It screams. A scream that shakes the soul and says: Wake up. Look around. Speak your heart before time does it for you.

Yesterday morning, I drank my coffee in a rush. I didn’t even notice its taste. And now I recall a quote: “The coffee tastes richer when you sip it like it’s your last.” How blindly we assume we have more mornings. More coffees. More messages. More hugs.

We live with this strange arrogance — that we have time. That we’ll get back home. That we’ll fix things tomorrow. That the goodbye hug can wait. But sometimes… the sky falls.

Today, I write this not as someone with wisdom or insight. I don’t have any. I only have grief. And the accidental privilege of still being here. Of still being able to hug my daughter. Call my mother. Tell a friend “I love you.”

If you’re reading this, maybe you have that privilege too.

So please, don’t wait. Say it. Do it. Hug them. Slow down. Sip your coffee. Watch the sky. Let your dreams run faster than your fears. Because time — as AI171 reminded us — is not something we lose.

It’s something we never truly had.