By Munraj Chawla

Kicked the Bucket List

The recent group SCAB posed the question: “What message do you want on your gravestone?” which naturally led me down a spiral of existential dread. What sentence do I want to summarise my achievements in life? The last six weeks of SCA have been a whirlwind, so much so that having to stop during all the madness and think about my future felt like a massive task. Some people accepted that this wasn’t a priority for them and focused on stuff like working on ACTUAL briefs. My mind, however, became transfixed and focused on the notion of death, whether (if I were to live to 80+) I’d have had a life well lived, and what that actually meant to me.

There’s been a few times that I’ve come close to dying – I’ve semi-drowned twice, I climbed Mt Fuji with asthma and my lips turned blue, I’ve eaten nuts at a restaurant and had to take an ambulance after having an allergic reaction… to name just a few. All of these experiences were horrible, obviously, but the group SCAB got me wondering, how would I like to die? So this SCAB is my literal

“Kicked the Bucket” List: 

(I’ve gone back having finished writing this to put in this sentence – what a morbid topic to write a SCAB about Munraj, do better.)  

1. Falling from a great height: Accidental or not, I think if I was falling from high up, I’d be able to come to terms with my impending death pretty quickly (if the fall was long enough.) Hopefully I’d even keep my eyes open. 
2. Struck by lightning: A common theme here will be quick deaths. The run up to a fall may be long, but the impact will make my departure from this world pretty quick. Same goes for being struck by lightning. (There’s also a chance I’d survive and develop superpowers.) 
3. Saving someone from ____: This is purely a narcissistic death where I’d be remembered as a hero for saving someone from dying but didn’t survive myself. Being hit by a car, jumping in front of a bullet, bonus points if it’s more than one person. 

There are, of course, things I want to do before I die. Whether it’s through one of the three “preferred” means, or an entirely random occurrence, the only constant in life is that we will all die. (What a happy thought to leave the readers on Munraj.) But I don’t think I want to write an actual bucket list. I have hopes and dreams like most people, but my mentality is that it’s better to just live a life without regret. I hope I can travel to as many places as possible, to get married and have a family and to be happy and successful in my career. These aren’t things that go on a bucket list though, just things I hope will lead me to having an enriched life. 

On the gravestone group SCAB, I wrote, “Saw everything the world had to offer.” 

I guess that’s all I really want.

Song of the SCAB: 

A R I Z O N A – Nostalgic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi4xCX-hUqg