I have been attending wee too many contests across the cyberland that I am tempted to do one myself. In fact I have been thinking about this for a while now. So this is a Book Giveaway Contest, and the winner gets a copy of my book, the collection of Bangalore-based short stories Tales from the Garden City. (Click on the link to read more about the book.)
The contest is pretty simple. Just answer one question. Leave a comment here with your answer. I will choose one of the best answers from your comments – either the one I liked best or (if there are too many to choose from) I will select one by drawing lots.
So here is the Question:
Assume that a Very Reliable Someone has predicted your death in September 2010 – a year from now. What are the 5 (or more, or less!) things you would want to do if you are given only ONE MORE year to live?
So, go ahead, think about it, post as many comments as you wish – make a wishlist of the things you would do if you are warned that your life would expire a year from now – in Sep 2010.
The last date for sending in your comments is Oct 18, 2009.
Do spread the word!
Hi Net Chick sent me.
My five:
1. Visit the Artic Circle and see the land of the Midnight Sun.
2. Run a marathon.
3. Tell everyone who needed to know that I loved them.
4. Write a Will (bit morbid & hopefully not necessary).
5. Relax – what will be, will be…
1. I will check the dependencies of people on me. Resolve them and ensure, they can live (financially) without me.
2. Increase my merits by giving away extra possessions through charity to deserving persons.
3. Make a pilgrimage trip to sacred places, which i had been pushing off for long 🙂
4. Most important, will not reveal my departure to the other world to anyone 🙂
1) First thing on the agenda: make a deal with this “very reliable person’ and market his ‘death predicting technology’. Make as much money as possible before my death.
2) Include my predicted death date in advertisements. Thus if I (the owner of this company) actually dies as predicted; it will be a strong boost to accuracy and reliability of the company. At least my family will reap the benefits.
3) Now that I have money, I can do anything else I want, like going to places I like…blah..blah. Am not going to continue listing my materialistic interests because there are more important things to tell.
4) Start jettisoning my girl friends. Oh, that is the hardest thing to do, but I don’t want them badly hurt when I die.
5) Finally, find as many reasons to prove that the ‘very reliable person’ may not be that reliable. But I will keep it a secret, because we don’t want to ruin our company, do we?
Practical;
1. Remorse the bad deeds!! Meet (at least call) whom I feel did hurt; do the penance.
2. Insure myself for a mammoth amount to keep dependants safe.
3. Take up adventurous sports.
4. Spend maximum time with my kids (I just love to love them)
5. Visit the place in Maharashtra, where my departed dad spent his entire life.
Imaginary;
1. Create a campaign "Courier to God". For a nominal fee, anyone can send message/parcels to God with me, since I'm gonna meet soon. This will work I guess!!.
2. Use the money for a grand funeral with all packages in my grave. This may take a huge area.
Nevertheless, this is fine for an imagination!!
3. Make the world terrorist-free (impossible?)
4. Tour the world with just a knapsack.
5. Finally, kill the "Very Reliable Someone" who has predicted death. Death canot be predicted!!
Like Johny Walker said in Anandh, "Zindagi aur maut uparwale ke haath mein hain, kaun kab kaise utega yeh koyi nahi jantha"
In English: Life & Birth is decided by the Almighty, who when and how will be deceased, nobody knows.
Ummm…Sorry Bob. I forgot to tell that my company( that commercially predicts death for people) already tied up with all the insurance companies. They pay me a huge some, and I give them the list of people whose death has been predicted.
However you can make a clandestine payment to my company, and you will be excluded from the list that goes to the insurance companies. The fee levels at 50% of your insurance claim. This fee has been fixed on the basis of the well know saying, "Half a loaf is better than none".
Besides, we can be partners. Currently you are the only employee of your 'Courier to God' company. My company,can provide you with the details of all the people who are going to meet God. So you can interview them and take them as employees. This comes at a nominal fee, Of!course.
1. Quit my paycheck job. If I'm going to die anyway, health insurance isn't particularly important.
2. Spend more time with the people I love.
3. Read, read, read. I don't have enough time to do it.
4. I'd like to think I'd actually clean out the basement, the closets, and all those other nasty areas that desperately need it, so that someone else wouldn't be stuck with the chore. Hope I'd actually do it.
5. Hopefully, spend lots of time outdoors in the sunshine, and laugh a lot, and tell everyone how much they mean to me, instead of being depressed and crying and sleeping a lot.
Hmmmm… Let me see (in no particular order!)…
1. See as much as the world as possible.
2. Write letters to all my loved ones (to be dispatched after I have been!).
3. Read all the books in my "to read" pile.
4. Tidy up my family history work and make copies to hand out to others.
5. Spend as much time as I can with my new neice/nephew (to be born very soon!).
Will just shrug it off and live till the last day because I have already done the home-work to meet "him" at the appointed time and place.No need to borrow a car to speed away for the place has not been predicted.:)
I was thinking of meeting "him."(That,by the way, is a small tale as forward to O'Hara's book "Appointment in Samara.") Then I remembered reading somewhere – might be Kierkegaard, the 19thC Danish philosopher and religious thinker – that 'I am not afraid of death because when I am here he is not and when he is here I am not.'
i've already lived through this moment, and changed my life then – so i wouldn't change a thing. I'd keep writing, keep loving, keep living.