The Night That Changed Everything

On a fateful night in 11 April 2011, a young woman was travelling in the general compartment of a train in India. She was on her way to attend a job interview, carrying with her the simple hope of building a better future. Like millions of young people, she was trying to find her place in the world, earn a living, and take the next step in her life.

The unreserved compartment was crowded. Hundreds of passengers were packed into the train, each travelling towards their own destination. Among them was an innocent young woman who wanted nothing more than an opportunity to move forward in life.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

A group of men attempted to snatch her gold chain. She resisted. She was a national-level volleyball player, accustomed to discipline, determination, and standing her ground. She was not someone who would easily surrender to a challenge.

But that night, her resistance came at a devastating cost.

On resisting, these men threw her out of the moving train. Before she could understand what had happened or find a way to protect herself, another train approached on the adjacent track passing at the same time. The wheels ran over her left leg, leaving her injured beyond imagination.

In a few terrifying moments, the course of her life changed forever.

There she was, injured and helpless on the railway tracks, facing a reality no young person should ever have to experience. The pain was unbearable. The fear was overwhelming. She did not know whether she would survive, whether anyone would find her, or whether she would ever see another morning.

She has recounted that she remained there for 7 hours, with 49 trains passing during that time. Imagine the helplessness of lying injured on the tracks, watching train after train pass while waiting for someone to notice you and come to help you.

She has also described the horrifying experience of rats approaching her injured leg. Even imagining such a situation is difficult. To endure it while injured, frightened, and struggling to remain conscious is almost beyond comprehension.

For hours, she lay there, battling intense physical pain and the uncertainty of whether help would ever arrive.

There was no reassuring voice telling her everything would be all right. No familiar hand to hold. No guarantee that she would survive the night.

Just pain. Fear. Helplessness. And the desperate instinct to stay alive.

Perhaps this was one of the lowest points a human being could experience: a moment when the life you once knew seems to have disappeared, when the future you imagined feels impossible, and when you cannot even see how you will get through the next few minutes.

Eventually, she was rescued and taken for medical treatment. Doctors had to amputate her injured leg without anesthesia to save her life.

But the ordeal did not end there.

While she was recovering, her account of the incident was publicly questioned. Reports from the time described railway police suggesting alternative explanations for what had happened, including the possibility of suicide or an accident.

Think about that for a moment.

She had gone through a horrifying incident. She had suffered a life-changing injury. She was trying to recover physically and emotionally, while facing an uncertain future.

And now, she also had to deal with people questioning her account of what had happened.

The physical pain was one battle. The emotional burden of being doubted was another.

Her name was Arunima Sinha.

And the girl who had once been lying helpless on railway tracks would go on to pursue one of the most extraordinary goals imaginable: climbing Mount Everest.

On 21 May 2013, Arunima reached the summit of Everest, becoming the first female amputee to achieve this feat.

Her journey is extraordinary, but I do not want to tell her story simply to celebrate achievement or to suggest that the suffering she endured was somehow necessary.

I want to begin with her story because it brings us face to face with a question that many of us encounter in our own lives, though in very different circumstances.

What happens when life takes us to a place we never wanted to be?

When a relationship breaks apart, when we lose someone we love, when a career collapses, when betrayal shatters our trust, or when a dream we have nurtured for years suddenly disappears, we may find ourselves standing amid the ruins of the life we once imagined.

We ask ourselves: Why did this happen? How will I move forward? Will I ever feel like myself again?

And perhaps, somewhere beneath all those questions, there is another one:

What might grow in my life from here?

These questions do not always have immediate answers. Sometimes, we have to live with the uncertainty for a long time.

But before I say that your pain or your grief is a seed of something bigger, let me talk about the nature of a seed.

The seed: nature’s remarkable design

Have you ever wondered why some seeds taste bitter? Why do some have hard shells, while others are protected by thick coverings? Nature has its own ways of protecting life and ensuring that it continues.

A seed is one of nature’s most remarkable designs. It carries within it the possibility of a new life. A seed cannot simply be eaten by every creature that comes across it. Some seeds have bitter or unpleasant tastes, and others have tough outer coverings. These characteristics can help protect them from being eaten or damaged before they get the opportunity to grow. Different plants have evolved different ways to protect their seeds and improve their chances of survival and reproduction.

Think about that for a moment.

The seed carries the possibility of a tree, but that possibility needs protection. It needs the right conditions to survive. When it reaches suitable soil and receives the right combination of water, air, warmth, and time, it may begin to germinate. Its outer covering gives way, a tiny root emerges, and a shoot begins its journey towards the light.

Seeds remain dormant until the environment becomes suitable. Nature does not promise that every seed will grow, but it gives seeds the potential to begin again when the conditions allow.

This is where I find a powerful metaphor of pain and grief is nothing but the seed.

Perhaps grief is not something we need to call a gift. Perhaps pain is not something we should celebrate or romanticise. Some experiences are deeply unfair, and some losses cannot be explained away.

But when we are ready, we can begin to ask a different question:

What might grow in my life from here?

Grief and pain can become the seeds of a new you. They are experiences you never chose to plant, yet you now have to find a way to live through them. The journey is to face the pain, nurture yourself through it, allow yourself to heal, and gradually make your way through the experience rather than continually running away from it.

The process can be incredibly difficult. There may be days when you feel stuck, when the pain seems unbearable, and when you cannot imagine a life beyond what you are experiencing right now. You may wonder whether you will ever feel like yourself again.

But hold on. Give yourself the time and support you need. Take one step at a time and allow yourself to move through the experience, even when the path ahead is unclear.

As you work through your grief and pain, you may begin to discover a different version of yourself, someone who understands life differently, recognises new possibilities, and sees choices that were once invisible. You may develop a deeper understanding of yourself, discover new strengths, or choose a direction you could never have imagined before.

You do not emerge from every painful experience unchanged. Sometimes, the person you become is different from the person you were before. And that new person may discover possibilities that once seemed beyond reach.

This does not mean that pain is necessary for growth or that every painful experience automatically leads to something better. It means that, even after an experience you never wanted, your future may still hold possibilities you cannot see today.

What might grow in my life from here?

Just as a seed needs the right conditions, a person who is grieving may need time, care, emotional safety, support, and patience. We cannot force growth by demanding that someone recover quickly. We cannot keep digging into the wound to check whether healing has begun.

The seed teaches us about possibility, not certainty. And that is the distinction I want to make before we explore what pain and grief might mean in our lives.

Arunima Sinha: from railway tracks to Mount Everest

So, after losing her leg, she faced an enormous question: what would she do with the life that remained?

She could have been defined by the incident, by the loss, and by the doubts that surrounded her. But her story took another direction.

Arunima decided to pursue a goal that seemed almost impossible: climbing Mount Everest.

She trained for the challenge and received guidance from Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to summit Everest. The physical demands of mountaineering are formidable for any climber. For someone recovering from a traumatic injury and learning to climb with a prosthetic leg, the challenge was extraordinary.

On 21 May 2013, Arunima reached the summit of Mount Everest. She became the first female amputee to achieve this feat.

Her achievement is remarkable. The lesson is not that losing a leg was necessary for her success, or that the injustice and pain she experienced were somehow justified by what she achieved afterwards.

Her journey reminds us that a devastating event does not always get to determine every chapter that follows.

The incident changed her life, but it did not have to define the limits of her future.

Her achievement required training, preparation, guidance, determination, and sustained effort. It was not simply the automatic result of suffering. She had to make choices, take action, and work towards a goal.

The pain was real. The loss was real. The obstacles were real.

And so was the possibility of building a future beyond them.

For Arunima, the mountain she eventually climbed became a powerful symbol of what she could still pursue.

For another person, growth may look entirely different. It may mean learning to trust again, raising children through a difficult period, returning to work, asking for help, or finding the courage to begin a new chapter.

So, what is the purpose of pain and grief?

When we ask, “What is the purpose of pain and grief?”, we may be assuming that every painful event must have a hidden purpose waiting to be discovered.

But life does not always offer such clear explanations.

Sometimes terrible things happen because of circumstances, human decisions, illness, accidents, or events beyond our control. We may never find a satisfying answer to why a particular loss happened to us.

And that is difficult to accept.

We naturally want our suffering to make sense. We want to believe that the pain will lead somewhere, that the loss will be compensated for, or that the struggle will eventually reveal a lesson.

Sometimes we do discover meaning. At other times, we simply learn how to live with what happened.

Both experiences are human.

Perhaps the purpose is not something pain brings with it. Perhaps purpose is something we gradually create in response to pain.

You may decide to become more present with our families. You may begin to take our health seriously. You may change the way we treat people. You may discover that our previous priorities no longer reflect the person we want to be.

Or we may simply learn to live one day at a time until the world feels manageable again.

None of these responses is superior to another. There is no requirement to become inspirational after a painful experience.

The possibility of growth does not erase the reality of loss.

And finding meaning does not mean we have to be grateful for what hurt us.

It means that even when we cannot change what happened, we may still have some influence over what we build from here.

Do not keep digging up the seed

Growth takes time, and constantly disturbing the process can make it harder for growth to happen.

When we are grieving, we may repeatedly revisit the same questions:

Why did this happen to me?

What could I have done differently?

Why did that person treat me this way?

When will I finally feel normal again?

Some reflection can help us understand our experiences. But endlessly searching for an answer that may never come can keep us trapped in the same painful moment.

This does not mean that we should suppress our thoughts or avoid difficult emotions. It means learning to recognise when reflection is helping us and when it is simply reopening the same wound without bringing us any closer to understanding or peace.

We can accept the pain without making it our entire identity.

We can remember what happened without allowing every decision about our future to be controlled by it.

And we can seek support when the burden becomes too much to carry alone.

If you are grieving, give yourself permission to heal at your own pace. Talk to someone you trust. Seek professional help when you need it. Look after your body, even when motivation is low. Take small steps towards the routines and relationships that help you feel grounded.

You do not have to know what your future will look like before you take the next step.

You only need to find a way to care for yourself in the present.

From pain to possibility

A seed carries the possibility of life, but it cannot control every condition around it. It needs protection, nourishment, and time. Even then, growth is not guaranteed.

Human life is more complex, but there is a similar truth: we cannot always choose what happens to us, yet we may gradually discover choices about how we respond and what support we seek.

Your grief may not feel like a seed today. It may feel like an unbearable weight. Your pain may not seem to contain any possibility at all.

You do not have to pretend otherwise.

There is no need to find a lesson while you are still trying to survive the experience. There is no deadline for making peace with what happened.

But perhaps, with time and the right support, you may begin to see a small possibility where there was once only pain.

It may be a new understanding of yourself. It may be a different direction in life. It may be the courage to ask for help, the ability to set a boundary, or the willingness to begin again.

And perhaps that possibility will grow into something you cannot yet imagine.

Arunima Sinha's journey is one extraordinary example of a person building a future after a devastating experience. You do not have to climb Mount Everest, achieve something remarkable, or prove your strength to anyone.

Sometimes, getting through the day is enough.

Sometimes, healing is enough.

And sometimes, the most meaningful growth is simply learning to live again with greater awareness, compassion, and acceptance.

You may not have chosen the seed that was planted in your life. You may not even have chosen the soil in which you find yourself. But, with time, care, and support, you may still discover what is possible from here.

The purpose is not to justify the pain.

The possibility is to build a life beyond it.