India, Feb. 2 -- Someone powerful is suddenly no more. Someone who occupied space in the national consciousness. Someone who had arrived.

To see a person taken away at the height of influence is disturbing. Not because they were perfect. Not because they were loved by all. But because it reminds us how flimsy our own sense of permanence is. We build castles in the air and then forget that air has no foundation.

We spend a lifetime climbing. Climbing careers. Climbing social ladders. Climbing political hierarchies. Climbing bank balances. We sweat. We struggle. We scheme. We sacrifice sleep. We postpone family. We postpone joy. We postpone goodness. All for that shimmering word called success.

And then one wrong turn of the steering whe...