Bitter Twenty, Sweet Sixteen

2016, Or Twenty sixteen, as it is fashionably called is here.  The world is one year older, but is it one year wiser? Will it be different from Twenty Fifteen?  That's uncertain, but is it too much to hope for?

Perhaps the climate will change... for the better, unlike last year when the summers were cold and the winter was hot, and wet was wet, dude!

 Perhaps the oil prices will be stable and there will be plenty to eat for everybody - not fried chicken, but rice and dal? Perhaps, we will pay a single tax across the country, as compared to the numerous taxes we pay now, and all our children will go to school.

On the flip side,  perhaps Saudi Arabia will trigger WWIII,  and the dictionary will redefine  the meaning of crisis,  as an act of Isis, while Terrorism will feature in school textbooks as the greatest ‘ism’ since Communism!

Perhaps our children exiting college campuses will find a job; Perhaps, the rapists will remain behind bars, while bars themselves will exit the landscape, making for happy families and happier bootleggers; Perhaps parliament will enact the word 'sitting' in letter and spirit...and I won’t find garbage at every street corner and water on my doorstep when it rains. 

All these answers my friend,  are blowing in the wind, which is fast getting to the point when it is being compared in content to the wind you break – and, which this year, could be restricted to odd and even days.

All this and more will appear on breaking news...raising hackles and a stink across our  swacch land, sometimes for the better, but mostly for more breaking news. 

Hope lies eternal. Lovely quote, but when the central word is used in its noun form, it can have disastrous consequences for the future of peace… of the world and of the mind.

My wife too is not immune to the “Winds of Change”.  How can she be, when “development” is the key word for the new year.  She told me it was time ‘I ‘changed….for the better. 

I promised her I would, but left out the details. Politicians often do that – leave out the details, while promising  a new beginning, that often has the same end.

My wife responded by nodding her head sadly. She watches too much television I guess.

Perhaps I will change, as will the world. But the devil always lies in the detail.

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