15 children from Lucknow died last week.

And we are still not talking about it enough.

They were 19, 20, 21, 22 years old.
They saw the fire and they tried to run.

The lights were off.
The lifts were not working.
The only staircase was blocked and filled with smoke.

They never came home.

The building had no fire NOC, no fire extinguishers, no smoke ventilation system. It was a coaching center running inside a building cleared only for residential use.

Nobody checked until 15 children died.

The parents are now living with a question they should never have to carry.
Why did I not go and check?

That guilt is not theirs.
They trusted the system, and it failed to keep up with their trust.

I keep thinking about those 15 houses.
The routine, the noise, and the chaos of a child coming home.

Just gone. At 19, 20, 21, 22.

We were supposed to protect them.

From today, if you are enrolling your child somewhere they will go regularly, look for the certificate on the gate.

Fire NOC. Safety clearance. Whatever is mandatory in your state.

If it is not there, ask why.

Because the people who were supposed to take care of this are clearly not doing it.
So we have to start asking ourselves.

I hope those 15 houses find peace.
And I hope we, as a society, finally take responsibility.
Before it is too late.