Hoping for & dreaming about a YR4 end

There are many irritating things about dying. For most of us yet to attain immortality, not getting to do things we look forward to doing, or are fond of, or have planned to do this Friday, is a bummer. Leaving things unfinished usually is cause for worry if you’re a master procrastinator like I am. (Our family motto: Why do something today when you can do it day after tomorrow?) There is much mumbo-jumbo in the market of life that’s out to sell that snake-oil brand about death being liberating. For those in terminal or acute pain, sure, I get it. A horrendously bad movie ending is to be preferred to it going on and on. But apart from pain relief, to tell yourself that dying is a happy release from these mortal coils is like the wealthy saying money doesn’t matter.

So, life ending does suck any way you look at it. But top of the pile of reasons why dying can be so disappointing, heartbreaking even, is that you either leave loved ones behind, or if someone else is doing the dying, then you’re the one left behind. This is a serious problem that’s a deeply worrying aspect of death that can’t be dodged. Unless…

…unless, no one is left behind. Enter 2024 YR4, a 10-storey-sized asteroid that was discovered in December last year and had, according to boffins at the European Space Agency (ESA), a 1.2% chance of slamming into Earth on December 22, 2032. While YR4 isn’t big enough to wipe out Earth, it was deemed a ‘city killer’ for its capability of destroying heavily populated areas like, say, central Delhi, south Mumbai, or anywhere in Kolkata. Since my loved ones and I all live in or near the third city most of the time, I put my money that YR4 does to Kolkata what Trump is doing to the global economy.

My hopes were raised in February when the risk of the asteroid hitting Earth rose to 3.1% – one in 32 – a far higher chance than it is to find parking space within a 2 km radius of my office on a weekday, and way higher than India has a chance to compete in the 2046 Fifa World Cup. But then, like some bad cryptocurrency, by February 25, chances of YR4 hitting any part of the planet was down to a disappointing .001% (granted, still higher than India’s chance of going to the football World Cup).

So, a communal – as in, ‘shared by members of a community’ – death looks slim now. But I’m an optimist. .001% is not nothing. The thought of no one of consequence being around to check (or, god forbid, celebrate) 15 years after we are stoned out of our corporeal heads in 2032 whether India is viksit or not, still brings me some hope and thrill. It’s been a while since I’ve watched news television – on any platform, phone included. It used to simply raise my blood pressure without me gaining any information that I couldn’t gather elsewhere at my own pace and under my control. My lifestyle isn’t that of a teetotalling, non-smoking sadhu. But staying off news TV has kept me healthy, moderately wealthy, and certainly wiser for the wear and tear. But like a BYD-owner regularly checking his Tesla stocks as if his mojo depended on it, I judiciously (read: manically) keep one eye every day on ESA’s Planetary Defence Office website to check whether its needle on YR4 has moved since February 25. No news channel, busy with nattering knobs – ‘discussing’ everything from how to take out Pakistan to Usha Vance’s great-aunt Chilukuri Santhamma’s English translation of the Gita – tracks the asteroid. So, no need to get my BP levels up again.

If you’re going to die from an asteroid, it’ll be the wind and shockwave that gets you much before the heat, debris, and tsunamis that follow the impact. In other words, it’s a relatively instantaneous, peaceful death for you and your loved ones – if the distant fiery blob in the sky approaching you doesn’t stress you out. Till then, I’m afraid, I will fret a bit about Sunday martini-soaked fun things like death and dying.