The Indian bucket list

While the entire world is going crazy throwing ice-cold water over grinning faces to draw attention to a condition that kills around 7,000 people a year, unbeknownst to the gleeful humanity on social media sites, Indians have quietly gone ahead with the task of trying to highlight some peculiarly Indian diseases.

ICE-BUCKET CHALLENGE: Fill a deep, heavy, iron bucket - no, plastic buckets won't do - with a jugful of ice cubes. Then fill the bucket with cold water. It must be allowed to stand until the entire content becomes cold to the touch. The challenged person has to stand on a pedestal. Once everything is in place, the challenger takes up the bucket, eyes the challenged with malevolent eyes and then tips out the ice-cold water into a trough from where the government will draw water for the millions of the toilets it hopes to construct in Indian schools. The task for the challenger is to take the empty bucket and hurl it with tremendous force at the challenged on the pedestal. The objective is to ensure the challenged is hit and falls off the pedestal. The fallen person's dynasty then has the right to nominate anyone to face this challenge. This challenge is also called Knocking a Rival Off the Pedestal and is designed to draw attention to a mental condition called Selfimportanceitis. Since it began, the challenge has been vigorously taken up by all Indians, and is particularly popular with politicians. In Bollywood too, this challenge has been satisfactorily taken up.

RICE-BUCKET CHALLENGE: Fill a small bucket - it need not be of iron for this challenge - with rice. Then go out and find the poorest person around and give it to him or her, taking care not to forget a photograph on your mobile phone to be posted on Facebook with a small note relaying the challenge to someone else by name. Simple? Well, the true challenge lies in ensuring that the rice in the bucket that you hand out is not rice of the best quality. You could, for example, fill it with rice fit only to feed the strays in the local animal welfare centre. However, and note this, for it is important, your picture must appear to everyone to be showing you presenting a huge bucketful of the best quality rice you could afford. And you must carry out the challenge without angst about what your bucketful could do to the health of the recipient. This challenge is alternatively called Laugh at Food Security and was designed to draw attention to a peculiar Indian heart condition called Insensitivitis. It has been enthusiastically taken up by, who else, the politicians, but there are quite a number of NGOs who have been delighted participants.

PIES-BUCKET CHALLENGE: This is a challenge similar to the Rice-Bucket Challenge mentioned above. The idea is to take a large bucket - the material of make or the size do not matter - fill it with delicious pies - could be apple, mince, jamun, it's up to you - and approach a group of expectant people. You must ensure that you wade into the drooling mass and make them believe that you will distribute the goodies among them. Then just as they begin to reach out to you, you must throw the pies in the air and laugh evilly like a Bollywood villain as they see that under just a single layer of pies at the top, the rest of the bucket only contained sand. Also known as the Pie In The Sky challenge, it is meant to make people aware of a chronic condition called Politicalpromisesitis. Again, the challenge has been taken up most joyfully by the political fraternity in the main.

Free Run is a fortnightly look at alternate realities joel.rai@bsmail.in