Adios 2014 - Greetings 2015

My good friend, the universal communications sage - Sir Arthur C. Clarke had an intriguing method of dramatising the passage of life. At his 90th birthday, he said to the surprise of us all, that he had orbited the sun 90 times.

The planet we inhabit makes a complete orbit around our star - the sun - every year. This process has been going on for billions of years, uninterrupted. When man appeared in this ‘landscape’, he calculated the duration of a complete orbit around the sun. He gave the name “Year” to one such complete orbit, and assigned “flight number” (as it were) to one full circuit.

In terms of this human convention, we began the flight number 2014, on January 1, 2014. This flight will be terminated on the December 31, 2014, ushering in the new ‘flight’, on January 1, 2015.

Human culture

Over the ages, various theatres of human culture, evolved a series of rites, rituals and ceremonies specific and peculiar to each of them, to bid adieu to the past year and to welcome and greet the New Year. This had resulted in the emergence of stunning array of individual and indigenous New Year ceremonies, which are restricted to a given racial, national or communal coteries.

But, in the current cultural globalisation, a new wide-spread cosmopolitanism has sprawled over a vast swath of the human community. In the slipstream of this wave of worldwide cosmopolitanism, a major part of the global population has got attuned to the idea of celebrating January 1 as the New Year’s day, while continuing to celebrate their own national New Year day, with the accustomed loyalty.

Global community

This way, almost the whole world accepts January 1 as the beginning of the New Year. This concept quite effectively unifies the global community. Historically, it was the Gregorian Roman calendar, that named the first month of the year as January, after the Roman God Janus.

“Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong-these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister

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“History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.”

Cicero (106-43 BC.) Roman Statesman

This divine being, who conferred his name on the month of January, is portrayed with an impressive iconographic feature.

God Janus is two-faced. In other words, in addition to his front face, Janus has a face at the back of his head as well.

The sophisticated Romans of that day, settled for this divinity to initiated the year, because he can see the past and the future simultaneously. Janus is venerated as the God of Beginnings.

When you come to think of it, Janus is not at all bad, as a divine presence to preside over the beginning of the New Year. Utilising his experience of the past, he can direct humanity towards the proper path enabling mankind to reach a fruitful New Year, which is still in the region of the future.

If Divine Janus focussed his hindsight on 2014, what outstanding developments would he discern?

After posing this question, let us take a fleeting human glance at what happened in the global arena in 2014.

The year 2014 has been overshadowed by a massive pandemic, that loomed swiftly into a global challenge. Ebola raised its demonic head gripping mankind in an eerie panic, the kind of which had been known only very rarely in human history.

It looked as if there was no way in which this monstrous threat could be satisfactorily countered. Ebola underlined tragically the utter helplessness of man in the face of a death-dealing, recalcitrant virus.

The world in 2014, seemed dazed atrophied and benumbed into an utterly frustrating in action brought on by a disease that has been ultimately traced to a fruit-bat which hosted the Ebola virus and eventually conveyed it to the humans who ate its flesh. Time international news magazine in a display of praiseworthy and emphatically humane journalistic gesture, selected the “Ebola fighters” as the persons of the Year - 2014.

In an eloquent rationale, elucidating the choice, Editor Naney Gibbs, paid a glowing tribute to Ebola warriors:

“The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defences, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are Time’s 2014, person of the year.”

Driving home the reason for the choice, Editor Nancy Gibbs, quotes a proverb: “Not the glittering weapon fights the fight.”

For such a compassion-fuelled heroic act of journalism that alerted the world through a sustained, committed and comprehensive coverage of the Ebola pandemic, TIME magazine itself, should receive the unstinting accolades of all those who esteem distinguished responsible and professional dedication.

At global level, in 2014, many other performances and achievements rose into high-profile stature.

In our neighbouring sub-continent - India - Sri Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister, when his BJP won 282 out of 543 seats in the Lower House of Parliament, in May 2014.

He displayed his unambiguous prioritisation of the spiritual well-being of his people, when he entered into a compact with Prime Minister Shenzo Abe of Japan seeking Japan’s collaboration to develop India’s sacred region Varanasi, jointly with the Japanese spiritual city Kyoto.

In a historically significant development, Janet Yellen 67, took charge of the helm of affairs at the Federal Reserve system if the United States, as its 15th chair-person. She is the first woman to hold this position and to take into her hands the world’s largest economy.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, at 62 became a source of international news of profound importance, in 2014, through his annexation of crimes from Ukraine. This made President Putin a hero for the Russians, who were ready to deify him for restoring the country’s pride.

But, many world powers, resented his move as an action that threatened the peaceful order prevailing in the region. In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, stabilised the strength of his Government, when his Liberal Democratic Party swept back to power, in a landslide victory in 2014.

This performance, has led to a firm restoration of the sagging confidence of the nation, in the Prime Minister’s Abenomics, as the proper formula to bring about an era of greater prosperity to Japan.

Strategy

In 2014, a strange strategy was adopted to raise funds for deserving causes, people doused themselves in ice water, to help raise more than 100 million dollars for disease-research. Bill Gates, the world’s richest person for several years, joined the ice water dousing system.

Towards the end of 2014, a terrorist attack in Peshawar, Pakistan shocked the whole of the civilised world. On December 16 seven armed terrorists stormed a school and killed 148 people in cold-blood. Most of the victims were innocent children.

The year 2014 witnessed an unprecedented space triumph. Spacecraft Philae landed on a comet on November 12, for a close scrutiny of a comet. The results of the probe will substantially enrich man’s awareness of this space-object-the comet.

At the dawn of a New Year, it is customary for most to form a New Year Resolution.

The Resolution of the world’s 14th richest person - Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, is now in the public domain.

The current population of the earth is in the region of 7.2 billion. About 2.9 billion of those are already on the Internet. This leaves about 4.3 billion offline. Mark Zuckerberg is keen to put these remaining people too online. But the average person’s New Year Resolutions are more down to earth. But what really matters is a determination to make a positive change.

And the New Year that dawns on January 1, 2015 is ready to fulfil any exorbitant resolution - to judge from what we hear about the promise of 2015.