A crash course in some lessons

Col HP Singh (retd)

Piloting my aircraft on that bright sunny day was pleasurable. The winds were favourable, sky crystal clear and the horizon had seldom looked so gorgeous. The aircraft followed my instructions rather obediently and my destiny was, undoubtedly, in my own hands. Defying gravity and soaring high in third dimension, I looked at the eagles with contempt, having beaten them in their instinctive skill. It had taken a lot of perseverance to reach these heights and a sense of conceit was natural when I saw the world lie below the dust of my boots.

Everything appeared perfect till the propeller stopped cranking, causing an eerie silence in the cockpit; I was experiencing my maiden engine failure. There was no panic as I had faith in my flying skills to handle the emergency. But when the plane preferred to comply more with the forces of gravity than my inputs and all attempts to re-ignite the engine failed, it dawned upon me that more than competence there was something bigger that controlled your fate. One can co-author one’s destiny but cannot control it. 

Steering the sulking machine towards a forced landing field, I saw the eagles again, reminding me of the adage: Be nice to people on your way up, you may meet them on your way down.

The tail winds that had willingly enhanced my speed just a while ago, instantly turned hostile by increasing the rate of descent. It is true, that while success introduces you to the world, failure introduces the world to you. Close to the ground, I realised that my selection of the forced landing field could have been better. The tyres burst on impact, the wings sheared off and the fuselage dragged for some distance, kicking up a cloud of dust as I crash-landed. 

Evacuating myself, I lay at a safe distance, heavily bruised, bleeding and shaken to the core. The dust was by now all over, teaching me the lesson of humility. My passion in which I had invested so heavily, lay burning in front of my eyes, exposing the frailty of things in life. 

Having recuperated, I look at myself and wonder if I have been a success or a failure. Success because I survived to live another day and failure since the expertise of which I was so sure failed me from saving my ‘air horse’ I had loved so dearly. May be I am a bit of both; while adversity has introduced me to myself, the signatures of experience on my body will remind me of the lessons I learnt. 

Everybody experiences crash landings sometime or the other in their personal, professional or creative lives. But we have to move on, because the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall. Since it is not easy to bear the burden of one’s potential; it is time to bounce back to the business of life with equal buoyancy once again.