The thief in the night…

On 16th April 2005 (about two weeks ago), my parents were driving to Goa. On that same day (unknown to my parents), Mr. Zaidi, his wife & son along with Zaidi’s sister & her daughter (both of whom had come down from Delhi for a holiday) were on the same road, their destination was Mahableshwar.

The following was reported in the (Mumbai) “Afternoon” newspaper titled “One moment took away half of our family”

Masood (50) along with his wife Rubab (40), son Adnan (16), sister Samina Abdi (41), her daughter Sarah (16) were going to attend the Mahabaleshwar Festival when they met with a fatal accident at Dabilgaon, 2 kms from Pratapgad, off Mumbai-Goa Highway near Poladpur on Saturday afternoon. Their driver Pramod Mishra (32), who also died in the accident had lost control of the Ford which skidded into a deep gorge on the highway. As his sister and her daughter had come all the way from Delhi, and his son had just finished his tenth standard examinations, Masood, a legal consultant by profession, had taken the weekend off for Mahableshwar.

The Zaidis reside at Lokhandwala complex, Oshiwara, from where they undertook the journey on Saturday morning. “Even I was willing to go but could not make it due to some work,” said Farhat adding that he first came to know about the accident an hour after Masood’s body was recovered. “All the way to Poladpur I was praying it’s the wrong car and the information was not true,” Farhat added.

(above: a Ford Endevour, same model as the one the victims were in)

My parents had read about the car going off the ghats & were terribly aghast about the whole - especially since it happened probably within the space of an hour since they had been there… they still were not aware of whom exactly had died in the crash (Goa newspapers did not carry all the details).

It was only yesterday, when we were informed about the memorial service that we found out who exactly it was & it was even worse seeing that they were known people.

We went for the service at which Arabic prayers were made, after which a Muslim Priest spoke beautifully. Among other things, he said “There are many people who don’t believe in God… but everyone believes in death” He went on to say that in our country Hindustan (I was particularly amazed he, a Muslim Priest, kept saying Hindustan rather than India!) we have people of so many castes, cultures & religions… but the common force than binds us all was love. And it was out of love for the deceased and their family that so many different people had turned up & were united in one body. He exhorted all us to hence continue loving one another as we all would face death one day… he ended by saying “we are after all, all sons of Adam”.

There were Eulogies made by a member of the Jindal family & Subhas Chandra (Chairman and Managing Director of Zee Telefilms) among others. They all mourned the fact that “Zaidi Saab” (as he was called) was taken away at such an early age & without any warning and spoke about what a gentle soul he was & yet how he worked tirelessly & pushed the Indian Legal limits, bringing Online Lottery to India (through Playwin) etc.

(I wish to state at this point that I am very anti-gambling of any kind & am not endorsing it here)

There’s one thing I always say, something I deeply believe in - there’s ultimately nothing that matters in life except your relationship with God. Like the Zaidi’s, death may come to us too, like a thief in the night.

Are we prepared to meet our maker?