Playing God

Being God must be a tough job. How do you decide, for instance, that it is time to take the life of a vivacious young 17 year-old girl, who just finished school and looked upon her future with uncertain yet excited eyes, knowing not what it would bring her?

Two days ago, a friend of a friend, Niranjana, passed away in a road accident. I knew nothing more of her than the occasional pop-up on my Facebook homepage, and yesterday morning my friend messaged me asking me to pray for her soul to rest in peace.

She was my age - an age when death is a foreign word - a word that we sadly acknowledge when grandparents pass away, but one that seems almost incomprehensible when its to do with us. Right now, the future looms large and bright, we're at the threshold of a whole new life - college. It seems so unfair that Niran was robbed of this. How does God, if he exists, decide who gets this future and who is deprived of it? What did I do that Niranjana didn't? Why am I alive, and Niranjana dead?

I feel guilt that I do not cry for her, and that her death (it's such an ugly word) was the reason I first visited her Facebook page, where at least a hundred people had shared their grief at her passing. If such a thing as heaven exists, and she is looking down upon us, I'm sure she'd be overwhelmed at how much she was truly loved. But I do feel a heavy sadness, and a bristling anger at the incomprehensibility of it all. She was just a regular teenager! With hopes, and dreams, just like the rest of us! HOW is it fair that she was killed in a road accident, when so many lesser people continue to live on blissfully?

Confused ramblings these are, but they have only further enforced my belief that God doesn't exist. Or that he takes a sadistic pleasure in messing with our lives like this.