How far is Damascus from New Delhi?

In last one month, I have visited for two projects outside India where respective government authorities have been working to attract investments. In December, I was in Ethiopia and it was an absolutely exhilarating experience. It definitely gave me a completely new perspective about whatever I thought Africa would be like. Clean country (and cleaner than India), good infrastructure, great weather and wonderful food.

Today, I am taking my flight back to Delhi from Dubai and it was great till the time the last thing happened at the designer's office. The designer for this project we are working for in Ras al-Khaimah is in Abu Dhabi. We got some great food for lunch, I got to know that there are places in Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia where it snows during certain times of the year and I got to see the Emirates Palace of The Sex & The City 2 fame. So pretty good. And the discussions with the designer were very fruitful.

But something happened when I was getting out of the office to drive back to Dubai and catch the flight back to Delhi.The mechanical engineer of this design firm is from Damascus. So I started talking to him about Syria, Bashar Assad, ISIS...all the craziness that you see in news. So this person first told me that he is from Syria, the fighting is bad back home so he has not gone there for last 4 years and then he said--his mother & one brother were shot dead last year in a road side shooting and one more brother suffered a bullet wound in the head (but thankfully, survived). I didn't know how to react. We were interacting with this person for last 2 days and at no point, it seemed that he was carrying such a tragedy with him. No signs of sadness; in fact he always had a smile on his face. When I am writing this blog now, I am wondering whether he could go back to attend the funeral of his family members considering he told me that he has not been able to go back for 4 years. Call it sadist curiosity but I am sure that even if this question had come to my mind when I was talking to him, I would not have had the guts to ask.

So what does it all mean?

a) First, life can be so bad that you might lose everything that is worth more than anything else (which is your family members) but there still is a life to live on, without others in the room ever knowing what hit you...and why.

b) Second, there is so much sorrow in the world that the daily struggle you go through, the troubles at home, the fights with the colleagues at work, the irritation of every other small thing...all of it is,probably, nothing. There are people who go through what I have described above (which is terrible) but which also gives the perspective of whether our cribs are worth it.

c) Finally, when you see what is happening in Syria, Nigeria, and all the bad things which seem to be growing by the day, somehow it seems that we are safe. We don't know anyone there and we are fine. These people have been fighting for centuries and it doesn't matter.Think again. I remember years back, when there were serial blasts in Jaipur, for a moment I thought this keeps happening in India (somehow, being in Los Angeles for some years had also contributed to it) and there is nothing to worry. In the next flash, I thought my parents are there but then again in the same instant, I thought my parents do not live in the walled city. So all good. But then it happened...what if my dad went out for some work in the old city? I immediately wanted to talk to my parents, hear their voice, confirm they were nowhere close to what happened. I called home, talked to them..relief. But then it occurred to me. When it used to happen in Kashmir, and before that in Punjab, dead were just numbers, made the newspaper newsworthy, nightly news to watch out for, opportunity to chit chat on serious stuff in past time. Kashmir & Punjab were so far off from Rajasthan. Never heard that such things happened in Rajasthan. So we are safe and will be safe forever.
So the question... Really, are we so far off from Syria (and it can very well be Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ukraine..) that the misery people are going through there would never come back to stare us in our face, make us think, leave us speechless and wondering...how far is Damascus from New Delhi?