That front page story wasn't mine

Anyone who read that puerile story on page 1 (with my byline on it) should know that it was not originally written in that shoddy manner. Here's the original text, please forgive the morons, for they literally know not what they do.

Head: Before I die, I want to…

Strap: From swimming with sharks, to drinking and paragliding, Mumbaikars have some strange things on their Bucket List

Byline: Dean Williams & Munira Chendvankar

If you thought Mumbaikars who spent a quite evening at home as the clock counted down to 2008 twiddled their thumbs, you’d be so far off the mark, William Tell will be spinning in his grave. They were pondering something profound.

“I want to travel to space,” says 24-year-old Jacob Rebeiro. “I want to see if the earth looks the way it does in all the Hollywood films.”

“I want to take a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway,” says NGO-worker Kiran Shekhar. “Doctor Zhivago is my favourite film and I love the setting.”

Are these the simple aspirations of city-dwellers hemmed in by the urban sprawl? Not quite, these are just a couple of entries from Mumbaikars’ Bucket Lists (a list of things to do before you kick the bucket).

The Internet has so many of these lists, it’s hard to know where to start, and the suggestions are often ridiculous, you’d rather just stay in bed and…well…die.

Wanderlist for instance, cites ‘falling in love’ as one of the top 10 things to do. The fact that love is wholly subjective and inevitably leads to depression seems to have slipped their minds completely. The website AskMen lists ‘become a millionaire’, as though all you have to do is pass a written exam, and so far you’ve just been too lazy to do it.

Of course, it’s not all ramblings of vapid list-writers; there are some genuinely helpful suggestions too. The BBC’s list includes ‘Walk the Inca trail’, and ‘See the Northern Lights’, both genuinely good ideas, that involve two essential human needs: the need to travel, and the need to be awed by nature’s (and, at times, man’s) ability to conjure sublime beauty.

Mumbaikars, however, are not looking as far afield as Finland or Peru, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of adventure coursing through their veins.

“The one thing I would love to do before I die is go skydiving in Barbados,” says model, Shayan Munshi, who goes on to state that he couldn’t imagine dying before he accomplished this. Skydiving seems to be one of the dominant entries on Mumbai’s Bucket Lists.

In keeping with the adventurous trend housewife Anita Almeida says she wants to “swim with Great White sharks.” Almeida has never seen Jaws and as such may be a tad too eager to doggie-paddle with nature’s most efficient hunter.

Shreyasi Bhattacharya, a student, wants to take drinking and driving to the next level: Drinking and paragliding. “I would like to sip the world’s most expensive wine while paragliding over an uncharted island,” she says. That feat in itself might get her into the record books, but she seems unfazed by any references to the fate of Amelia Earhart.

War zones and all their catastrophic environs also seem to lure the intrepid Mumbaikar: journalists Yashshri Soman and Arun Das want to cover a war.

“I would love to cover a live war as a reporter for a leading TV channel. Also, I hope I can achieve some kind of record in this field, as a woman,” says Soman.

Das, however, just wants to wear a flak jacket like his idol John Simpson: “It looks and sounds cool, and I would really like to try it before I die.”

Shalini Puri, a BPO executive, when told that Orlando Bloom’s Bucket List lists ‘Learn to play the Bongos’, is beside herself with joy. “That’s on my list too, along with ‘learn to play the piano’. Maybe Orlando and I could form a band,” she says.

But for many Mumbaikars, the Bucket List is more than just a database of selfish pursuits. It’s a chance to realise a philanthropic spirit often bushwhacked by globalisation.

Singer Kailash Kher says that he wants to see India a developed and economically independent country before he dies. “A true, shining India. That’s what I want to see.”

Rohan Jhungare, a student, is refreshingly pragmatic when he says that, for him, it’s about leading a life sans regret: “Before I die, I want to look back and say I’ve led a full life, without regrets. That’s the only thing on my Bucket List.”

The continuing rise of ‘Things-to-do-before-you-die’ lists and books is a global phenomenon: Patricia Schulz’s phenomenally popular bestseller 1,000 Places To See Before You Die, has been reincarnated as calendar, and Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are starring in a new film titled…you guessed it…The Bucket List.

But eventually it all comes down to death and our morbid preoccupation with it. Maybe we should all take the advice of Somerset Maugham: “Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.”

Mr Maugham’s advice goes straight to the top of my Bucket List.