Suicide Blues

Please, please don't take me seriously. Or at least too seriously. My post on being a disgruntled deskperson led to a lot of frantic calls. Guys, I am okay. Am not about to give up journalism or do something equally drastic.

I remember how one of my first blog posts also led to phone calls from worried friends and relatives. The topic - 'Ways to commit suicide'.

The post got me a phenomenal response from total strangers. Half of them tried to tell me how life is a beautiful gift and I should think happy thoughts while the other half - weirder still - wanted my advice on how to die and whether I could actually provide them some cyanide tablets. Excusez-moi but I do not wish to die. It was just a stupid blog post. See for yourself -

How do you want to die? Please, no morbid fascination with eschatology here, just insatiable curiosity. Which do you prefer - hanging, drowning, burning, cyanide... or the thousands of options of snuffing out God's gift of life?

Personally think burning to death is the worst possible way to die. All that skin flaking off and virtually boiling to death. Ugh! Being crushed to death in a torture chamber does come a close second. Watching the ceiling coming slowly but inexorably down to crush your cranium and bones to bits would take a lot of courage.

Drowning is bad too but only just - think of the discomfort as water wends its weary way down your lungs. Hanging - whenever our venerable Bollywood directors want to show somebody committing suicide, they invariably take recourse to the lethal noose. Is it easy? Or are you trying to emulate our martyrs?

Would you hire someone to batter you with an axe? You would have to, you know. It's never the same thing when you stab yourself with a knife or attempt to scrape your head off with an axe. Most likely you'll be left with a horrendous scar and the pain of living with it.

Or do you want to jump from one of the Nehru Place skyscrapers? You will know what it feels like to be free as a bird in the sky. For a few thrilling seconds, before you land with a thud on the concrete, splattering your entrails all along the sidewalk and bloodying the immaculate trousers of an innocent bystander.

On the flipside, taking potassium cyanide must surely be the easiest way to die. At least, you will be doing a service to mankind if you can just convey what it tastes like. Even qualify for a posthumous Nobel Prize.

Hey, I am no harassed docent explaining the concept of danse macabre. Just wanted to know how you would wanna die 'If' you had to?

They say, curiosity killed the cat. But in my case, I just don't care. What do you say?

The same thing happened with another of my blog posts two years ago. Why, why do people take me seriously? Can someone contemplating suicide actually write the following post -

I wonder how a proper suicide note should be written. Is it something people rehearse for hours on end or something they whip up on the spur of the moment?

Is it written like an Oscar award acceptance speech (I thank my wife, children and so forth) or like a post-it note on a refrigerator (I am tired of life. I quit).

How about a Booker Prize for suicide notes? Obviously, the recipients would all get it posthumously. Or we'll make sure attempted-and-unsuccessful-suicides are excluded from qualifying.

Should it be typed, handwritten or embossed in ink with a calligrapher's panache?

Should it be indited on paper, ancient parchment or the back of a used napkin?

Should it be a word (Death) or a ream or a 375-page novel?

What about style - dramatic, staid, artistic, modern, Shakespearian (To be or not to be - I have decided on the latter) or SMS.

Choices - why are there so many choices. And until I can figure out how to write my perfect little suicide note - I refuse to take my life.