Transforming December 31st

I fail to understand the magnitude of this calendar day though the world appears to be energized and glorified in spite of being a working day. Are they waiting for another year which will make no much divergence or are they waiting for the dreaded year to terminate? The query still dangles bold and untamed but none could give me a pleasing response. In reality I don’t recognize why people are so hyped up on this day. I can understand if Sir Anthony Hopkins or Nicholas Sparks (an American Author) were rapturous with the last day of the year because they are blessed to be born on that date. They sure would be in high spirits with the proceedings around the world celebrating their birthday in such a great degree.

The tooting of automobiles at New Years Eve truly never thrilled me to any level. The universal language that everybody recognize from a honk is “get out of ma way”. Reasonably confusing though, but the men on wheels never tend to know this and honk their way to magnificence, trying to formulate public what they intend to articulate. Is it Happy New Year or some filth from all the alcoholics that hit the roads on this day, honking as the clock strikes midnight? It goes on like a Mexican wave and can be heard for miles, a true sign of alcoholic pleasure. Wish these fanatics know where they are heading to as though there seems to be no tomorrow. It would be a splendid initiative to have the 31st December renamed from New Years Eve to a more apt world alcoholic day for the amount of ethanol based beverages sold in robust quantity.

We tend to forget the millions who live in a precarious and expelled livelihood famished for a one time meal and these millions don’t discern whether it’s a new dawn for starvation. It’s just another day for them when the world is on its toes spending prolifically on alcohol, concerts and fireworks while dancing their way to contentment. Why do the blessed disregard the distressed and the deprived? If a few good men would have prudently thought of the poor, the mammoth amount could have been donated to these humans who still think they are the children of god, but blessed with jaundiced eye. The privileged have all the comfort and the destitute have minimal. Disappeared is the speech of a twelve year old Canadian girl named Severn Cullis Suzuki who silenced the world for 5 minutes in 1992 on a speech given at a U.N assembly in Brazil. This is the actual extract of her speech which was given a standing ovation and left some of the delegates crying.

The hole in the ozone layer, pollution, the devastation of the forests and extinction of so many species, we adults have no idea how to fix these things, in fact can’t fix them, and that we must change our ways. “If you don’t know how to fix it, stop breaking it,” “I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to speak on behalf of starving children around the world whose cries go unheard. I’m only a child and I don’t have the solutions…but neither do you. I am only a child, but I know we are all part of a family five billion strong; in fact, 30 million species strong, and borders and governments will never change that. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to share. We are afraid to let go of some of our wealth. Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with children living in the streets. This is what one child told us: ‘I wish I was rich. And if I were, I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter, love and affection. ‘If a child on the streets who has nothing is willing to share – why are we, who have everything, still so greedy'? I am only a child, but I know if all the money spent on war was spent on finding environmental answers, ending poverty, and finding treaties – what a wonderful place this world would be.

Let us all forget the past and the predecessors in the form of Secretary Generals of the United Nations. Wake up Mr. Ban Ki-moon the incumbent Secretary General and rewrite history, wipe off this 31st Dec ritual and turn the day to relish and appreciate that we all did something for a cause. All of us should weigh down from being skeptical and let the imminent generations come across this day as a day for the poor and allow them to celebrate the first day of the Gregorian calendar with satisfaction.

I am not a saint either because I too had the privilege to celebrate a birthday on 31st Dec 2007 but not exactly when the world commemorates but a day before, the date on my timepiece did read as 31st Dec. For the readers to comprehend, I would say it was 30th night and seconds ticking towards the 31st though was a very special and cherished moment of my life. Never know if it will return and even if it does, I would abstain from rejoicing on this day for the betterment of civilization.