Perhaps. May just be. Possibly. And why not? As they say these days, Morendra hai to Mumkin hai. It is coming your way, mind. Don’t get it, pray do not, please. For if you do, you won’t be any more. You don’t want to get a bullet. Or do you?

Well, the bad news is that you don’t always get to choose. But then the good news is that if you get it, that will be the end of all things. All things meaning most bad things because it is mostly bad things that happen in the course of what we call life and it is not such a bad thing for them to be brought to an end. Brought to rest. Brought to closure. Khatm. Shesh. Full stop with a little dot at the end as emphasis. No more.

Bullets can do that. We have seen just recently. In the right hands, with the right proximity and with the right sort of general aim, they can put an end to bad things. I mean, by bad things, the burden of this business of life, nothing else. Don’t get me wrong. That has become a habit with people around me recently I’ve noticed. They get me wrong and then they blame me for what they have got wrong. Like when I said the bullet train is coming, they thought it was down the line somewhere and would arrive at the platform soon. And so they all rushed to the platform and packed it like wriggly live fish packed into a tin and began asking: but where is the bullet train? Where Bhai? Which side is it coming from? What platform? Is it even coming? You said the bullet train is coming and now it has been so long and there is no bullet train to be seen coming from nowhere. Chal jhoothe!

That sort of getting me wrong, I am sure you get what I mean.

Train will come, patience! Meantime, is it such a small thing that bullets have come? And they are coming and coming, and from all sides, and look what an impact they are making. Give credit where it is due, 50 per cent of the promise is with you, or all around you. Delivered. Not in ones and twos but in dozens, and issued all in a rush for everyone to see. What they did is a different matter, if you get a bullet that will of course be the end of it and there will be hai-tauba and cheekh-pukaar and all that sort of thing, but the point is bullets have been delivered. The consequences, well everybody knows the consequences of bullets being delivered, so stop this shocking-fokking business. Bullets have done the job.

Not well? I’ll give you a goli.

The doc did say

Take one a day

And so I complied

And very plainly: I died.