We're all glass in a world of concrete

One morning a few weeks ago, I was on my way to work using my usual route of passing BAT to Rothmans roundabout and then to Jaya One. From afar, I saw a group of men crowding by the roadside just in front of BAT building and I thought, "What's going on? Is that a union strike or something?".

As I reached closer, I saw a pair of feet on the ground in the middle of all the commotion. Then a body. The way the body was lying down, feet stretched downwards, I knew he was gone.

That incident got me realising again about how fragile life really is. The man probably was on his way to work after a nice happy breakfast with his family made by his wife. Little did he know that another person, also on their way to work, didn't have a good night and couldn't see the potholes on the ground. Before it was too late, they swerved a little and unknowingly collided with the motorcyclist who was riding just beside his car.

Life is an ironic little thing. Mothers tirelessly push hard and at times painfully to bring a life into this world and how easily that same life can be taken away. Just like a Vase. It takes hours of molding the glass into the desired shape, more hours to paint the designs onto the beautiful glass Vase that it will become. But in just a slip of the fingers or a twitch in an arm muscle, the beautiful Vase free falls to the ground. Pieces of colourful shattered glass then lay on the ground. The grandeur and beauty of what was once the Vase now becomes just another memory.

picture found online

How then does one decide on the value of a person's life? And should there be disparities in each and every individual's life value if in the end, all of us end in a basket of shattered-once-beautiful-vases.