Ten minutes.
That’s all that separated Bhoomi Chauhan from boarding Air India Flight 171 out of Ahmedabad on June 12th. She had been running late – caught in traffic, watching the clock, probably pleading silently for time to bend in her favor. But it didn’t. She missed her flight. And in those first few minutes afterward, she must have felt what we’ve all felt in such moments: a deep sense of failure, of frustration, of wishing for a do-over.
And then the news came.
The plane she was supposed to be on crashed just seconds after takeoff. Everyone but one lucky soul on board was killed.
Her tardiness, that ordinary inconvenience, became a miraculous reprieve. The delay that had ruined her day had saved her life.
We cling to stories like these. They’re sobering and cinematic. They remind us how little control we truly have and how close we often are to consequences or blessings we never see coming. But Bhoomi’s story, while extraordinary, invites something more than awe. It invites us to rethink our entire relationship with time, with control, and with the things we call delays.
Because if we’re honest, most of us are conditioned to fear delay. We treat it like a personal failure. If we don’t hit certain milestones on time – be it college admissions, visas, job offers, promotions, or marriage – we panic. We compare. We spiral into the narrative that something has gone wrong. That we have gone wrong.
But what if the delay isn’t a detour? What if it’s a form of direction?
What Bhoomi’s story reminds us – so viscerally, so violently – is that not everything that looks like a setback is working against us. Some delays protect us. Others prepare us. Many redirect us toward something we didn’t know we needed. But almost all of them reveal something – if we’re willing to stop and look.
And stopping, it turns out, might be the most radical thing we can do in a world obsessed with speed.
Right now, thousands of students are living through their own version of this waiting game. Their visa appointments are stalled. Their travel plans are uncertain. Their lives, as they imagined them, are in a holding pattern. And I understand their anxiety – I’ve lived it. I still do. I know what it’s like to stand at the edge of a life you’ve worked for, only to be told: not yet.
But delay is not always denial. Sometimes it’s discernment. Sometimes it’s grace.
Over the years, I’ve learned to ask different questions when the path slows down. Instead of “Why is this happening to me?” I’ve learned to ask, “What is this pause inviting me to notice?” Instead of panicking over what didn’t work out, I try to reflect on what might have been prevented, or where I might be being re-routed. The answers don’t come quickly. But they always come.
We live in a culture that tells us to move fast and break things. But maybe the more courageous act is to move slowly and see clearly. Maybe we are being asked, in the pauses, to become the kind of people who can handle what we’re asking for – before we get it. Maybe the delay isn’t an interruption at all. Maybe it’s the very soil in which our readiness grows.
I’m not suggesting every delay is a hidden blessing. Some are painful. Some are bureaucratic. Some are just cruel. But I am suggesting that the frame through which we view these moments matters deeply. If we only ever see delays as threats to our momentum, we’ll miss the invitation they carry. To reflect. To realign. To reimagine.
So here’s what I hope you’ll carry with you today.
That thing you’re calling a failure – just because it hasn’t happened yet – may not be a failure at all. It may be alignment. It may be a quiet form of mercy. It may be life itself slowing you down long enough to catch up with your own becoming.
And if you are in that in-between space – between what was supposed to happen and what will happen next – don’t rush to escape it. That space, as uncomfortable as it feels, is sacred. It’s where clarity forms. It’s where resilience is built. It’s where the most honest version of you begins to emerge.
And maybe that’s where the real work begins – not in trying to speed things back up, but in learning how to live wisely within the pause.
And when you invariably find yourself in that waiting room between chapters, here are five questions that might help you turn the pause into practice:
1. Name the delay.
Not just the logistical one – the missed opportunity, the deferred outcome – but the emotional weight behind it. Is it fear? Is it shame? Is it grief? We can’t learn from what we refuse to name.
2. Reframe the story.
Ask yourself: What if this isn’t happening to me, but for me? What might this interruption be protecting me from? What possibilities am I being asked to consider that I hadn’t before?
3. Shift from urgency to awareness.
Trade the question “How do I fix this?” for “What am I being asked to notice?” What patterns, people, or pressures in your life are finally being revealed in the stillness?
4. Use the pause to realign.
Write down who you were trying to become before things slowed down. Then ask: Is that still the version of me I want to grow into? So often, we chase the thing because we were moving too fast to question if we really wanted it.
5. Prepare quietly.
You may not control when the next door opens – but you do control who you are when it does. So study. Heal. Rest. Strengthen. Build the inner infrastructure now for what the next chapter will require.
This isn’t a to-do list in the conventional sense. It’s a way of being. A reminder that not all movement is forward, and not all growth is visible. Sometimes the most profound transformations happen in the quiet, invisible space between what we expected and what actually is.
Bhoomi Chauhan was ten minutes late. And in that delay, her life was spared.
The rest of us may not have such dramatic reminders. But we will have pauses. We will have setbacks. We will have long seasons of “not yet.”
And in those moments, we have a choice.
We can fight the pause.
Or we can listen to it.
Because sometimes, ten minutes late isn’t a mistake.
Sometimes, it’s exactly how you arrive – right on time.
Ex Cogitatione, Progressus.
Girish
