WHAT”S NEW ABOUT NEW YEAR

On the morning of 1st of January when the New Year dawns, we wake up (barring those who wake on 2nd Jan.) there comes a strange feeling of everything being different. Is any thing really different? Just give it a thought. Is it in any way different from the 31st of December? The sun shines with similar intensity with the same chill carried by similar winds as the previous day. Walk into the town and see the same hustle-bustle with vehicles flitting about and the children in a hurry to catch the school-bus. Unless you win a lottery or lose at a casino, you continue to as rich or as poor as the previous day. So the feeling of being different is only in the mind. It’s like waking up on a Sunday morning and feeling different.
If there anything different, it is quantum of garbage that you see on the street generated by the New Year revelry. Or the remnants of burnt tyres on the streets. Or the broken show-cases resulting from vandalism. Or fragmented safety glasses strewn around standing testimony to the vehicular mishaps of the previous night. Or the overworked hospital emergency wards filled with victims of auto-crashes and the morgues with a few extra corpses. What else is new other than these?
The poor continue to make both ends meet just as they did the previous day. The rich continue their conspicuous consumption verging on vulgarity. Politicians continue with their false promises while the babudom goes on taking bribe as before. Our cricket team continues to lose their overseas matches and the humanity goes ahead with its Great Money Chase. So what is new about the New Year?
Maybe, there are a few things new. You may, through the haze of the hangover, see a new wrinkle in your face or a new grey hair on your pate (if you are in middle years). The young may find a new boy/girl friend at the discotheque. The old may find some new infirmity that may take them closer to their graves.
And all may continue to write 2007 for a few days till they get into the habit of using 2008.