Exit Sign Was Still On
The irony of life is not just in its unpredictability. It is in how ordinary moments precede extraordinary ends. Some boarded that plane to chase dreams, some to reunite with loved ones, some to simply breathe on a vacation. And some… just didn’t make it. Because life made that one final, unfathomable decision for them.
That day in Ahmedabad, it came like a thunderbolt wrapped in metal. A plane sliced through the sky. Then through a building where medical students were having lunch, interns were napping after a night shift and faculty members walking down a corridor. All unaware. All unprepared. Not knowing death was hovering over their head. And death had actually made a reservation without informing these unlisted passengers.
Inside the aircraft, there were stories untold, texts half-typed, playlists playing songs they would never finish. One family was relocating abroad permanently, “leaving India for good.” Someone was flying back to attend a wedding. Another was on a business trip, rehearsing a pitch in their head. Then there was the passenger who missed the flight, stuck in traffic, cursing the delay. Saved by an inconvenience!
And then, just one survivor. Because fate, that abstract force we never understand, rolled the dice and spared only one. It is strange, isn’t it? How that number, one, can carry so much weight when surrounded by so many zeroes?
I was not on that flight. But I could have been. I was due to fly the very next day, for an official assignment. I sat at the airport, numb. At the gate, there were no conversations, just heavy silences, sidelong glances, and hesitant prayers under breath.
The aircraft was dim inside. All windowpanes pulled down. Nothing outside to distract. Nothing inside to comfort. Only that solitary, glowing red EXIT sign above the aisle. It looked less like an emergency cue and more like a quiet reminder: “This is not forever.”
We fly so often, physically and metaphorically. We plan. We project. We assume our journeys will land us exactly where we intend to go. But what is the truth? Life does not owe us arrivals.
That EXIT sign glowed the entire time like a whisper in the dark--You never know. It reminded me of a cruel truth we so often sweep under our carpet of schedules and motivations: control is an illusion. Certainty is a lie we have all agreed to tell ourselves so we can get through the day.
The tragedy of that crash is not just in the lives lost. It is in the illusion broken. That we have time. That we’ll say sorry tomorrow. That we’ll correct ourselves afterwards. That we’ll call once we are done with our work. That we’ll rest once the deadline is done. That we’ll visit parents next week. That we’ll live later.
Later? Later is a story we tell ourselves. But sometimes, there is no later. Only now. And then EXIT.
What do you say to families who waited at terminals with flowers and placards, only to be handed silence? What do you say to a mother whose child went to study medicine and came back in fragments? What do you say to the one who missed the flight and is now left with the guilt of surviving?
Perhaps the only honest thing to say is… nothing. Perhaps all we can do is live better. More aware. More grateful. More present.
Not paranoid. Not afraid. But awake. Awake to the fact that any moment, no matter how ordinary, can become final. That each meal shared, each word spoken, each journey started must be lived like it matters. Because it does. Life is too short to be little.
So yes, I boarded the flight. Distressed. Small. Human.
And somewhere midair, I realized that the only real destination in life is not where we are headed, but how we are being, with those we love, with ourselves, with people, with time.
Let the EXIT sign remind us. Not just of death, but of life. A life that deserves our full sincerity before the curtain falls.
Because while you may never know when your final boarding call will come, you do know this that you are still here. And that, right now, is enough reason to be alive, humbly and honestly.
