A few seconds worth a lifetime

This was around 2009. A lot could have been different, lives could have changed because of something that almost did not happen.

It was just another evening. A vendor came to install a new signboard on our office terrace. The metal frame was heavy, so Ritesh asked Darshan to help, then went on with other arrangements nearby, keeping a distant eye on things.

People were talking. Someone checking measurements. Someone passing tools from below. Then Ritesh noticed Darshan. He wasn't speaking, just mildly shaking. At first it was hard to tell what was wrong, he stood strangely still, hands fixed to the metal frame, body beginning to tremble. Only then did Ritesh realize he'd come into contact with a live wire through another signboard nearby.

There was no time to decide what the right thing was. He noticed a rope the workers had been using, looped it around Darshan, and pulled. It was enough to break the contact. For a brief moment the evening stood still, then voices returned, people rushed in. Ritesh stayed beside him until they reached the hospital.

It was the kind of evening no one expects to remember years later. Maybe that's why it stayed with him, not as proof of courage, but as a reminder of how quietly life can ask something of us before there's time to think.

The signboard went up another day, work carried on. But what he remembers isn't the signboard. It's that character rarely shows itself in moments we prepare for. It shows up in the seconds we never see coming.