To Die or not to Die

To die or not to die. That’s the dilemma facing most people these days. Even young people die these days. There are some who die every week, some who die every month, some who die every few months. It comes in an array of colours: blonde, brown, dark brown, black, jet black, burgundy, even flaming red. So to die or not to die. I die because, as told by a rickshaw driver once, I have to maintain appearances in a workforce which is still young. So does a lot of innocents born in the heady days just after independence. My dad died. I die only black. I see these aging bald men die-ing their hair blonde and the funny result is a VIBGYOR or colours: a few blonde wisps a few black wisps mixed with a few white strands. Looks grotesquely ugly, especially in broad daylight. What say? And there is a dark-skinned man I know who dies his hair with the local barber. Being a lazy barber he dies the man’s scalp, too, a jet black. That makes him look uniformly black all over, as if, as if, oh forget it!

To die is a good thing. Honest. You look ten years younger when you die. That’s why women always die. They know it’s no longer that age when a woman’s strands of white were considered sexy. So Aishwarya dies and she says “you are worth it.” Worth what? Die? A woman is only worth the die?

To die is messy. I never seem to get the mixture right. Sometimes it oozes down my fingers, sometimes it oozes down my scalp making me look ghastly. But the result is I look younger, though I don’t look as young as A.K. Anthony, who I am sure dies. I use Godrej. Every Malayali worth his coconut oil does, I mean die, not use Godrej. Kuriachen Kuriakose too dies. He says man must die so that he can live. That if he doesn’t die, he will be dead. I don’t know how that can be, but I can guess. And my guess is:

Die (pun intended) or else die.