Death isn’t entirely a piece of cake. You can have as many pieces of cake as you like, but you can only die once. Sad, but true. Of course, having a lot of cake while consequently suffering from severe diabetes helps you get closer to death, but then again, it only comes once. It’s not like you can come back and try to have a better death. Shit’s unfair that way. But at least some celebrities get to have a lot of deaths.

I’ve heard innumerable death rumors about Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Hilary Duff, heck even Marilyn Manson.

Metal Dad: Today is a sad day, Marilyn Manson has just passed away according to Twitter.

Daughter: But daddy, I thought he was one of the undead.

Nevertheless, death isn’t something to be made fun of. But then again, this world can get cracked up at times.

For example, in India, family of border guard Sital Singh thought he was dead. They began to receive a hefty pension as the family of a supposed war hero. However, it turned out he was alive, but had actually fallen in love with a Bihari woman and had spent the previous decade in Bihar. His family decided that they would rather keep the pension. He has been spending the last 6 years trying to convince people that  he is still, very much, alive.

Another very nifty piece of information I discovered on the internet is the case of Ghanian Kweku Awakoye.

While in the hospital, some administrative blunders led to him being listed as one of the deceased. His family was told the same. When he got discharged from hospital 3 weeks later, everyone in the locality was rather surprised.

“So what’s it like being dead?”

“You ask me that again and you’ll find out”

Similar to Sital Singh was the case of Japanese WWII veteran Kenji Tsugimori. He had been hiding in a cave for some 10 years following WWII and once he returned to civil society in 1958, he announced,

“It is with great embarrassment and shame that I announce the fact that I am still alive”

 

Even if we were to ignore all that, two of the most intriguing death-related piece of news would have to come from the BBC website following the deaths of Dick Cheney and Pope John Paul II. Whether or not it was technical problems or whatever, eulogies of Dick Cheney listed him as Britain’s favourite grandmother

And the pope as both a Queen Consort and someone with a soft spot for Horce Racing.

While the BBC did later attribute both these cases to be editorial and template errors, I personally feel both these cases were just facts one could not reveal until one was dead.

However, the cherry on top  must surely be the founder of the Association of Dead People, Lal Bihari Singh.

He wanted to be symbolically listed as one of the dead so he got a likewise certificate from the Punjab Medical College Hospital. The state medical service later denounced this. By then, he had already changed his name to “Lal Bihari Mar Jawa” , which basically means “Lal Bihari Deceased”. I wonder what will be engraved on his tombstone once he really dies.

“Here Lies Lal Bihari Deceased.

Died. Again.

Or so we think.”