A “NEW YEAR”

I have always wondered what is it about the New Year that makes the world go crazy with celebrations, partying and resolutions! To me, it is no more than an excuse, an excuse in this age of cutthroat competition and furious paced lifestyles.

So what’s new in the “new year” anyway?

Ask the sun, which would continue to take the same old path as day before, unaware of the hopes attached, by us mortals, to its journey.

Or the stars, which will come out as the dusk descends in a habitual manner, unaware that we expect them to turn our fortunes in what we call the new year.

Ask that beggar on the crossing, who has passed the previous week chilling, and is counting days for the spell of winters to pass away.

Or that old –woman, I meet on my way to work, who’ll wake up and drag herself religiously to the temple, yet another day

Ask that dreamy- eyed clerk, who will continue to fight the hassles of life, a nagging wife and carry on his struggle to get his child into an English medium school.

Or the man in the grey jogging gear, I’ve seen without a miss in the joggers park this year, who’ll continue to be as strange to me as he has always been.

Ask the politicians, who’ll carry on mud slinging and dishing out promises of building a newer inclusive nation.

Or the “aam-aadmi”, who’ll continue pointing fingers with a “chalta hai” on his mind and toeing the dictates of life in the same old fashion.

It is only the digit, which gets replaced year after another, a digit that is only symbolic of our progress in the journey of life. A journey, independent of any calendar or symbols, which in any case continues to march with every passing second.

It is a mere convention … yet another one in our stereotyped lives, where we train ourselves to enjoy symbols. It is yet another sign of a blinkered path-led thinking.

Isn’t it the man who created and designed this convention of a 365 days period to be called an year, and thus limited the dimensions of his vision.

Why is “new year” so special? Why celebrate only “ a new year “, when year itself is a human created entity? Why not celebrations to mark “a new month”…or for “a new day”…”a new hour”…”a new minute”…or rather each “new second”!! When each second has the potential to alter your life, why not give it the value it deserves? Why wait for seconds to accumulate till they form a year for that party to happen? Why postpone the celebrations and resolutions? Why have we begun to look for such reasons to celebrate or resolve when every passing second deserves the celebration of lifetime? Or why not simply make celebrations “a way of life”--- celebrating our existence, this beautiful world, the gifts of god, the simple things we never care about…. celebrating life….