Why nobody should live beyond 75

It's not working. These days, everybody and his grandfather wants to live to be a hundred, even if it's in a hospital ICU. And if we continue to make babies at the current rate and impose an 18 per cent GST on condoms (28 per cent for flavoured ones, as they come under the category of fruits), by 2050 we would have eaten every animal, bird, fish, reptile and insect on the planet, except perhaps cockroaches, which are hard to digest (as Mr Modi is finding out). And by 2100, we would have started eating each other, which is actually not such a bad thing.

For the plain fact is that this planet simply cannot support its current population of eight billion, expected to swell to 12 billion by 2100. A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that the planet's natural resources can sustain only 2.5 billion sapiens, homos included.

Take India — currently at 1.4 billion, expected to grow to 1.7 billion by 2070, most of this growth coming from bhakts. Our government, of course, assures us that our fertility rate has dropped to 2.1, less than the replacement rate, and that soon the acchhe din will be here. I don't believe a word of it, for all figures released by this regime are fudged.

And we keep finding innovative ways of reducing our population, on paper at least. For example, the recent SIR has cut the population by 70 million — people who don't exist because they have been deleted from the voter rolls. The government refuses to acknowledge their existence. That should reduce our fertility rate to 1.8 or so, and by the time Mr Gyanesh Kumar completes his unholy exercise, it should be down to 1.5!

So you see why the only figure I approve of is that of Sunny Leone: it's a sight for sore eyes, has been consistent for many years, and what you see is, as they say, what you (don't) get.

So how do we avoid becoming homo cannabalis?

Economists like Messrs Ruchir Sharma and Sanjeev Sanyal tell us that every problem has a supply side and a demand side. In this case, we can do little on the supply side because the babies will keep coming, as long as India remains the third-largest consumer of porn in the world. So the solution to this overpopulation has to be found on the demand side, and I've just found one: put a cap on longevity.

No one should be allowed to live beyond 75 years; this is not the era of Methuselahs. Pass a law that everyone shall be euthanised once he, she or it reaches the age of 75. It is not enough to put them in the Margdarshak Mandal.

Consider the benefits of this drastic final solution, not just for the planet but for ourselves personally. Death will become an appointment, not an accident, and the uncertainty shall be removed forever.

We all secretly wish to die in bed of an embolism or heart attack, blissfully unaware that we are dead until we find ourselves at the Pearly Gates, confronted by St Peter asking us for our Aadhaar card or voter ID. But we also know that this is a remote possibility, and that we are more likely to quit this mortal coil because an eagle drops a tortoise on our heads (like Aeschylus, the Greek playwright), on a toilet seat (like Elvis Presley), or in one of Mr Gadkari's tolled potholes.

I personally find this uncertainty very unsettling. I would like to know how and when I'm supposed to go so that I can prepare for it. My solution ticks these boxes nicely.

It gets better: your kids won't throw you out of the house because now they know they will not have to wait indefinitely (like Prince Charles for his kingship); it will be theirs in any case in a few years.

Governance will improve because politicians, judges and bureaucrats will no longer be seeking re-election or re-employment. Knowing they have only a few years left, they would much rather do those things they always wanted to but had kept postponing — that trip to Las Vegas or Sonagachi, a dinner at a Michelin-star restaurant, organise a Satyanarayan pooja for Mr Modi's good health, visit the Ram Mandir before it is given on perpetual lease to Mr Adani, take the shocked wife on a second honeymoon because you missed the first one as you had to go on election duty, or make desperate love to that woman you always desired but for whom the opportune moment never came.

Since you will no longer be a drooling, doddering, incontinent octogenarian (you'll be terminated at 75, remember?), you don't have to worry about cancer, intestinal blockage, thrombosis, dementia or prostate enlargement. You can die with dignity, dressed in a three-piece suit, not in faded pyjamas or a towel.

You'll save a fortune in medical bills. Your kids and heirs will also save a fortune, this time on lawyers' bills, because, being forewarned about your exit date, you can set your finances, will, nominations and other affairs in order and obviate any scrapping among your heirs later. They will love you for it, and dote on you right up to the moment the crematorium door slams down on you with the finality of a Supreme Court order.

The government would be ecstatic. Its pension bills would decline dramatically. It would no longer have to rack its brains to find suitable berths for redundant party workers or retired judges. It would save trillions because, with a declining population, there would be no need to provide for measures against global warming, climate change, ever-increasing old-age pensions or Ayushman Bharat bills.

The world as a whole would save sextillions of dollars more once Trump is euthanised under the new law because there would be no more wars and the Strait of Hormuz would be open again. Sadly, however, Putin and Netanyahu will still be around for a few more years.

This leaves only one more box to tick: how exactly will these millions of old codgers be dispatched?

Well, Elon Musk has provided the answer — the Neuralink brain implant. Designed to be implanted in the brain to control one's cognitive and sensory functions via a computer, all it now needs is to be equipped with a 'kill switch"'. This will be triggered automatically once a person reaches 75, stopping all bodily and brain functions in a nanosecond.

There is also a Plan B, in case the kill switch fails, as it is likely to do in the case of bhakts who, in any case, do not have any brain function. These Neanderthals shall be locked up in an auditorium and made to watch, without any break, 100 episodes of Mann Ki Baat and Ministry of External Affairs press conferences. Extensive trials have shown that no one can survive more than 25-30 such episodes, though the process is not entirely painless.

The new law should, however, have one caveat — it will have prospective effect only, and not apply retrospectively. This, of course, has nothing to do with the fact that both Mr Modi and I turned 75 last year.

Views are personal. More of the writer's works here

Avay Shukla is a retired IAS officer and author of Holy Cows and Loose Cannons — the Duffer Zone Chronicles and other works. He blogs at avayshukla.blogspot.com