A split second...

Everything was over. A split second had changed her life, irrevocably. As a dancer she was a legend. The key word being WAS. Her dancing career was over. Or was it?

She saw it coming but could only helplessly be carried by the momentum of the moment.

Sakshi was driving her Jazz and feeling great about life that wonderful winter morning in the outskirts of Delhi.

The winter nip chilled the tip of her nose. The soft music wafting from the car stereo set her mind to a much slower pace than she was used to.

At twenty something life is always full of promise. And if you are talented and love what you do, it is difficult to walk. The step has a bounce and the heart is heady with the spirited existence. The world is beautiful, green and sunny. And you are invincible. The smile is more a part of your face than the make-up you put on. And makes you more beautiful, too.

The dance program this evening was completely sold out. The reviews of the previous one were pegging this to be an event to be watched. It was the kick-off to the Fashion Week. The talk of the town, however, was not the fashion but the dancer.

At the centre of this Universe of stars of various shapes, colors, sizes and luminosity was Sakshi.

Beautiful. Graceful. Floating.

Her mind was drifting from one thought to another but she was strangely at peace. She could not identify each thought that came to the stage of her mind and clamored for attention... smiled gently... and walked away... She was happy...

Then she saw it. The truck coming at her in the wrong lane was hurtling out of control. It had veered a few yards ago and jumped the divider as effortlessly as a doberman jumping a garden fence. There was a moment when it appeared to be toppling over, and then it landed with a thud on all four wheels and sharply went out of control.

Fascinated, Sakshi watched. Time was moving as if in slow motion. She was at the centre of a vortex. Everything around her was turbulent, but she was strangely in the eye of the storm and watched every passing second as if from above. She was being carried inexorably by the whirlwind right into the lorry. Or was the lorry being carried to her toy car?

Her foot lifted off the accelerator slowly, ever so s-l-o-w-l-y, moved a graceful arc in the air and came to rest on the brake. It seemed like eternity. She had heard it said that in the moment of death, everything slows down and the entire life flashes in front of your eyes. It did. Her mother's tears as she won her first Interschool Dance Competition at the age of 6, her father's smile as he proudly picked her up and high above his head on the way back home, her brother wanting to play with her at the end of her dance class and her grandmother's concern that she would be tired. Everything was as if a movie were playing on her windscreen. Yet, this movie did not prevent her eyes from seeing the oncoming truck.

In the moment that she finally braked, the lorry rammed into her.

Her last memory was of the look of horror on the face of the lorry driver.

Then it was all blackness. She passed out.