In a twist that would make even Kafka reach for the gin, it has emerged that a family grieving the loss of their mother in the 2010 Air India crash has been informed by authorities that the body they buried may not be their mother at all. Instead, an unidentified man now occupies the space where maternal love should have rested. This revelation, like a bad dream from which you cannot wake, has been met with predictable silence from those whose job it is to provide answers: the airlines, the investigators, the suits with their clipboards and their forms.
But let us not be hasty. Let us not rush to judgment. After all, who are we to demand clarity when there is so much beautiful, beautiful bureaucracy to admire?
The family, having waited 13 years, must now wait a little longer. Because in the world of corporate aviation, time is not linear. It is a currency spent on legal fees and PR spin.
The authorities say they are 'investigating' but we know what that means. It means they will form a committee. The committee will hold meetings.
The meetings will produce reports. The reports will be filed. And the family will be left with a grave that contains a stranger, a plot of earth that holds no history, only a nameless terror of the sky.
This is not a failure of procedure. This is a triumph of absurdity. We live in a world where airlines can lose not just luggage, but souls.
Where the dead can be swapped like faulty goods. And where the only response is a shrug and a promise to 'look into it.' So raise a glass, dear reader, to the unknown man in the coffin.
He is, after all, the only one who has truly escaped this farce.
