Welcoming a New Year

As each New Year comes, so too comes the celebrations, the thrill, the excitement of welcoming a new year. Also comes the time to bid farewell to the year gone by. The year that goes leaves by some personal successes, some failures and more hope for a better tomorrow. With the New Year comes a new beginning.

Ok…it sounds preachy. But it is how a new year is welcomed, isn’t it? Of course, we need to thank the liberalization policy of 1991 that has brought much more celebrations with every year. Commercialization, consumerisms are reaching frenzied heights making simple people into competitors who have to celebrate EVERY occasion they get out in the pub or in some high profile party. If you aren’t in the top-most party, you are a no one. What? Did I hear u right? You want to stay at home and celebrate the New Year? That’s unheard of and totally down market and boring. One can’t just do it. You need to be in the streets shouting like hooligans, making a ruckus and disturbing an insignificant few who want to spend the eve as he/she does any another day.

In one of the glossy newspapers there was an article about how this decade brought lifestyle changes to our society and life. The article, though not really informative revealed quite a few things. The article wrote about all the things that have become very much a part of our lives like mobile phones, the internet, DTH Television, malls, coffee lounges and the likes. These things, among many others have really changed our lives. We can’t even comprehend our lives without these things today. Imagine having to live without a mobile phone or not getting to check your mails for a day. It’s more than torture. Gone are the days when Doordashan gave us our staple diet of entertainment (yes diet…nothing more, maybe a little less). We didn’t have much choice and were quite happy with it. But today we need the big parties, the bigger mobiles and better connectivity. It’s the time for 3G technology and Ipv6. It’s the information society we are in that will soon make way for the Knowledge society. We have all the information we want in our fingertips and today’s economists are also giving due importance to the local knowledge of indigenous people.

This decade has truly been significant for India. We have progressed in many ways, especially economically. When the world was hit with the recession, India could claim to have been hit the least as our banks have been nationalized years ago. Our cities are growing; our technocrats are finding recognition all over the world. India is the hub for outsourcing companies giving employment to thousands of youth. Indian sports, other than cricket too has made a mark in the world, Indian fashion has gone places so have Indian movies. We gave the world the musical maestro A R Rahman. Truly, this decade has been spectacular.

Ok...this is the good side of our country, the side we should be proud of, the side we need to project to the world. But what about the 70% of the population who also live in this same country? Our media, primarily the English media reported heavily on what WE have been doing this Christmas and New Year. But just one question, don’t those people living in the villages or the small towns also constitute WE THE PEOPLE. Can’t we know how these people celebrated the New Year and how New Year can also be celebrated without the glitz and the glamour? These stories may not be the right ingredients for fetching the high raking advertisements but surely there is more to reporting than advertisements? I know there isn’t any answer to them. Afterall its public demand. Am I part of the same public.