Welcome 2009

31 December, 2008


End of yet another disastrous year. The last time I had such a fearful year was 2005. Before that it was 2002. 1999 before that. Makes me wonder about the frequency. 3 years – that’s the gap. So if I were to forecast my destiny, the next hit is to come in 2011. I don’t know how it is going to hit me – but I have an idea as to how will it leave me. Alive, but penniless. So my focus in between would be making some money. And if it continues like this, you know, two year of trying to make some money only to get washed away in the third year, I wonder how retirement is going to be.

I read about tribes of Afghanistan and wonder how tough life is for them. I read about the Kurdish freedom fighters and marvel at their inhuman ability to sustain a regime like that of Saddam. I read about Israel and her ever hostile neighbors, about Taliban dominated social Pakistan and their Government’s political callousness; and I think about life’s unjust nature, about imbalances in our world and people. But back home, to me and my family, 99, 02, 05 and 08 has made me realize that liberalization and shopping malls notwithstanding, we are only marginally better.

The world and time provide us with cushions. Life, money, fame and power – in that order, from inside to outside. For the zillions like me and my family, the final layers of the cocoon are non-existent. We don’t have power, and we are nameless and faceless. The only thing that we can muster, summoning all our faculties, is some money – to help us ward off the existential threat. Like the way I have been doing – salting away for a bad patch and fighting the patch with reserves. I am sure people like us have cycles (calculated or not), with varying amount of time lag. The difference between me thus, and the unknown refugee somewhere in Afghanistan about whom I read only in books? He doesn’t have money. That makes me better than him by a single point. And during a particularly bad year like 2008? No difference at all. Sentiments of the same fraternity – moneyless, nameless and impotent. One life, that’s common, binding two living entities by an unseen bond that stretches across hundreds of miles.

So here is my hope for 2009. I don’t have the luxury of a wish-list, I have but one hope. I hope I can earn some money in 2009 and continue doing so in 2010, because 2011 is going to be bad again. My one point difference that existed between myself and that nameless refugee in Middle East needs to get back to its respective place. Equality among mankind looks good only in textbooks. But I am not wishing my current counterpart bad luck for 2009, for I’d like to believe that I am decent, educated and socially aware like most of you. I am only hoping for myself. I think he is doing the same for himself.