Old-Year Babble

This is the fifty-second week of the last year of the first decade of this millennium (some mathematical geniuses would agree with me as they fight it out that there was no Zero year between 1BC and 1AD). Let us not worry about the others who say that the decade was over last year itself, for the time being. Let us resolve that the first decade is going to be over in four days. Many people make much fuss about bidding the year adieu and welcoming the new year. As a young boy , i was fascinated to see the cartoon strip that the Tamil daily 'Dina Thanthi', never failed to put on the first page of the newspaper on the first of January. A young boy sends out an old man and the connotations are the young boy is the new year and the old man, the passed out year. Though very mundane, the cartoon strip has a lot of messages in it. For every one the time comes to an end. I am not the kind of person who celebrates much of new years. For a time being i was in a fad of celebrating the Tamil new year opposed to the hype and hoopla filled English New Year. That too fizzed out as the time of it breathed out. Being a student of English Literature, i was part of the company that was celebrating the English New Year in college by cutting cakes on New Year's Eve and putting every one of those present to the gruelling task of narrating their resolutions. I look back at every one of those celebrations with much discomfort now as i consider them funny and juvenile.

It is only for the human understanding that the time has been divided into days, months and years. As far as nature is concerned, it troubles itself only with the changing of seasons. The change of seasons is cyclic and early humans looked forward to them for betterment in their lives. During the French Revolution, in opposition to the involvement of Church, the revolutionists designed a calender with ten day weeks to make people forget going to churches and not being influenced by the Parish and Kingly soverignty. For me it is just like any other ordinary or for that matter special day, if one considers each day special, and one should continue to do what one considers best on that day too. I may have sounded rather skeptical and boorish, however i have just given a piece of my mind.