The news of Zubin Garg’s death came through in a quiet, digital manner, a brief headline on a screen. My knowledge of his life is limited to a single point of reference, his most famous hit song, a melody that was part of the background noise of a specific time. The details are sparse; he died while scuba diving. This fact alone would have been a somber piece of news to absorb at any time, but it landed with a different weight now. Just a few days ago, I was in the water, experiencing scuba diving for myself. The juxtaposition is stark and unsettling. It transforms a distant tragedy into a proximate thought, a personal reminder of the thin line that exists within any activity that engages directly with an environment not meant for us. The ocean does not care for our plans or our identities. It is a neutral force, and our interaction with it is a negotiated agreement with inherent risks, a fact that becomes easily forgotten in the controlled excitement of a guided dive.
My own experience with scuba was brief, a single introductory dive off a coast nowhere near as demanding as the conditions some enthusiasts seek. The process was methodical, dominated by instruction and safety checks. The instructor’s calm repetition of hand signals, the checklist for the equipment, the deliberate act of breathing through a regulator all created a bubble of perceived control. The moment of descending, the world above dissolving into a shimmering ceiling, was one of profound quiet. The sound of your own breath becomes the only constant, a rhythmic inhale and exhale that is both calming and a stark reminder of your dependency on machinery. You are a visitor in that silence, surrounded by life that operates on a different set of rules. It is a powerful feeling, one of slight vulnerability mixed with wonder. To think that the same activity, the same fundamental actions of preparing tanks and checking pressure gauges, can lead to such divergent outcomes is a cold, factual statement about probability and circumstance. The procedures are designed to minimize chance, but they cannot eliminate it entirely.
There is a peculiar sadness in the death of someone you only know through their art. You have a connection to a part of them, the part they chose to amplify and send out into the world, but you have no context for the whole person. The song I remember was upbeat, a piece of pop music that suggested a certain energy, a presence. To have that memory now framed by this finality creates a dissonance. It feels incomplete. The news reports will understandably focus on the tragedy of the event, the loss of a public figure. Yet, for someone like me, on the periphery, the reflection turns inward. It becomes less about the specific individual and more about the abstract concept of cessation. Life is not a narrative with guaranteed arcs or a satisfying conclusion. It is a series of events that simply stop. The unpredictability is not a philosophical concept but a mechanical reality. Systems fail, conditions change, human error intervenes.
This incident reinforces the understanding that uncertainty is the only true constant. We operate daily under the assumption of continuity, making plans for next week or next year, building habits and careers as if the ground beneath us is solid. The reality is that it is not solid; it is a temporary arrangement. Engaging in an activity like scuba diving merely makes this fragility more apparent. It forces a conscious acknowledgment of risk that is otherwise easy to ignore during a commute or while sitting at a desk. The fact that my recent, safe encounter with the ocean is so close to this tragic event involving another person makes the lesson more immediate. It is not a call to avoid such experiences, but rather a note to approach them with the respect they demand and to acknowledge the fragility that is always present, even when it is not as visibly tied to an adrenaline-fueled pursuit.
The death of Zubin Garg is a sad event, a reminder of the finite nature of things. My reaction is shaped by the coincidence of timing, linking his story to my own recent memory. It underscores that the line between a routine adventure and a catastrophe can be vanishingly thin. There is no profound wisdom to be gleaned, only the reaffirmation of a basic fact: life is unpredictable. The appropriate response, perhaps, is not to live in fear of the uncertainty, but to recognize it as a fundamental condition. This recognition, in itself, can alter the quality of the present moment, adding a layer of value to the mundane and the extraordinary alike.