Just eight days into his first job, 23-year-old Bhavishya Sharma from Haryana found himself trapped inside a smoke-filled building in Lucknow, making what would become his final call home.
Bhavishya, a resident of Mahipur village in Haryana’s Sonepat district, was among the 15 people killed in the fire that broke out in a three-storey commercial building in Lucknow’s Aliganj area on Monday. The building housed a graphics animation centre, a pet shop and a library.
According to family members, Bhavishya had recently completed a professional course in animation and graphics and moved to Lucknow in pursuit of a career in the field. He had left home on June 6 to join an animation and gaming institute and had been at work for barely a week when tragedy struck.
As the fire spread through the building, Bhavishya managed to make a brief video call to his mother. According to the family, he showed his mother the room filled with thick smoke and said, “There is a fire in the room. Smoke is everywhere. We may not survive.”
The call lasted only a few seconds before it disconnected, leaving the family in panic. Soon afterwards, reports of the major fire incident began emerging, prompting relatives to rush to Lucknow.
Following postmortem formalities later that night, Bhavishya’s body was brought back to his native village the next day. His cremation took place on Tuesday in the presence of relatives, friends and villagers, who gathered to bid farewell to a young man whose professional journey had only just begun.
Bhavishya was the only son of Narendra Sharma, a private school teacher, and his wife, who works as a tailor. Struggling to come to terms with the loss, his father said, “My son was my only asset. I have nothing left now.”
Recalling the aspirations that had taken his son to Lucknow, Sharma said, “He had big dreams and aspirations, but all those dreams have now been reduced to ashes.”
Family members said Bhavishya had taken up the job with the hope of supporting his parents and contributing to the future of his younger sister, Trisha. They said he wanted to ease the family’s financial burden and help meet responsibilities linked to her education and marriage.
“I request the government to ensure that such tragedies do not happen again in future. No parent should have to lose a child in such an incident,” his father said. The family has also sought employment assistance for Trisha, a graduate, to help them cope with the loss.
The tragedy has cast a shadow over Mahipur village, where residents joined the grieving family in mourning a young man whose future had seemed full of promise only days earlier.
Expressing grief over the death, Haryana Cooperation Minister and Gohana MLA Arvind Sharma said in a post on X, “It is saddening to learn about the death of talented 23-year-old Bhavishya Sharma from Mahipur village of Gohana constituency in the fire incident in Lucknow. The young man had joined an animation and gaming institute just eight days ago. We stand with the family in this difficult time.”
