The clock on the bedside table blinked 12:03 AM when the phone rang. I groaned. Who calls at this hour?
“Hello?” I mumbled, half-asleep.
“Hey Harsh, sorry to call this late, but we need to talk.” The voice was familiar—an old college friend.
“It’s midnight. Is everything okay? What’s up?”
“Sorry, man. It couldn’t wait. Vinay was killed in a car accident.”
I had read about what it feels like to get the wind knocked out of you, like a punch to the gut. In that moment, I understood it.
Vinay wasn’t just any friend, he was one of the Gang of Four, our inseparable college crew. You almost never saw one of us without the other three. We played side by side on the college sports teams, played video games together, nursed heartbreaks over endless chai, devoured roadside snacks with zero regret, and pulled wild, sleep-deprived all-nighters before exams. We weren’t just friends—we were brothers in every way that mattered.
“Hello? You there?”
“Yeah” I croaked. “What happened?”
“He was driving home…hit a tree…police say it was instant…the memorial service is…”
The words blurred. I heard them, but I wasn't listening. I was already looking for my car keys, my heart wrenching at the thought of what his wife and two kids must be going through.
I met Vinay in my sophomore year of college. He was a few years older, and everything about him commanded attention—athletic build, striking features, and a confidence that seemed to radiate from within. He possessed that rare quality of leaving an indelible impression on everyone he met, whether in passing conversation or deeper friendship.
Cricket was his domain. He wasn't just a player; he was the best player in the college. When he captained the team, it felt inevitable, like watching someone step into a role they were born to fill. Yet somehow, amid all the attention and accolades, he saw something in me that I couldn't see in myself.
During the holidays, while most students scattered to their homes, Vinay would remain in the hostel. Those early summer mornings became sacred to us. We practiced cricket as the sun climbed higher, followed by unhurried breakfasts and steaming cups of chai. We would dissect the nuances of the game with the intensity of philosophers, then let our conversations drift toward life's larger questions. His unwavering belief in my abilities slowly became the foundation of my own self-confidence.
Being local and living with my family, I often invited him over. His gregarious nature and instinctive big-brother warmth quickly won over my entire household. Over time, he became woven into the fabric of our family life. He would appear at our doorstep unannounced, sometimes just to spend time with my parents and siblings, often staying through dinner. My mother's cooking became legendary in his eyes, and he never failed to express his appreciation.
My visiting grandmother was particularly charmed by him. Given his impressive build and commanding presence, she would tease him, insisting he should have joined the police academy instead of pursuing engineering. He would laugh heartily at her observations, and she would beam with the satisfaction of someone who had found the perfect target for her good-natured ribbing.
I learned later that he had lost his mother early in his life. Perhaps that loss explained why he treasured those moments with my family so deeply, why he seemed to absorb every detail of our dinner conversations and family rituals. Perhaps he had found something with us that he had been missing.
After graduation, life did what it always does—it pulled us in different directions. New cities beckoned, new countries called, and the demands of jobs, families, and obligations created distance where once there had been daily proximity. But the bond we had forged never quite broke; it simply stretched across miles and years, waiting.
When I moved from India to the United States for a new job, I carried those memories with me. A few years later, when Vinay made the same journey, we reconnected with the ease of old friends picking up a conversation that had never really ended.
There's something profound about meeting old friends in a new land—it feels like coming home to a piece of yourself you thought you'd left behind. In Vinay's familiar laughter and unchanged warmth, I found not just friendship, but a bridge between who I had been and who I was becoming.
Just a few months ago, I drove for eight hours over the weekend from Leesburg, Virginia to Greensboro, North Carolina just to see him. Now, I was making the same drive again. Only this time, to see him for the last time.
There are moments in life—rare and irreversible—that split your timeline into before and after. For some, it’s a chance meeting with a future partner. For others, the birth of a child or loss of a parent. But the ones that hit the hardest are the ones you never see coming.
For me, that moment was was seeing Vinay in the coffin. He looked peaceful. Almost carefree. Just like he’d lived. And all I could think was: A friendship and life that took years to build had vanished in an instant.
The days that followed blurred into a haze of logistics—memorial planning, embassy visits, document shipments, and arranging to send his body home to India for the funeral.
In the quiet that came after, I found myself reflecting often on my own mortality, lingering on Mary Oliver’s haunting question in The Summer Day:
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
I also thought of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, who wrote:
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it…
Life is long if you know how to use it.
And I began to wonder: How often do we let life rush past us in a blur of busyness and obligation? How rarely do we stop to ask ourselves the deeper questions:
Am I living a life of meaning?
Am I aligned with my deepest values?
Am I using my time to make the unique contribution only I can make?
Vinay’s death didn’t just break my heart—it stripped away the illusion of later.
So many of us—especially high performers, leaders, change-makers—live as if time is a guarantee. We postpone joy. We defer purpose. We delay difficult decisions until we have “more time.”
But more time is not promised. Purpose is. Choice is.
This is not about death. It is about what it means to truly live. It is about designing your life from the inside out, and about making sure that when the next chapter turns, it’s one you’ve written consciously. It is an invitation to live with intention.
The midnight call that shattered my sleep also shattered my assumptions about tomorrow. In losing Vinay, I found something I didn't know I was missing: the urgency to live fully and deeply and to make every moment count.
So I’ll leave you with the question that changed me—and maybe, it can shift something in you, too:
What will you do with your one wild and precious life?