The Hindu Business Line : Thoughts on New Year's Day

Just as the beauty of a sunset is a matter of perception by the human brain, so, one thinks, is the human interpretation of January 1 as marking `a new beginning'.

Sitting in Kolkata (somehow, in one's mind, one still refers to the city by its old appellation Calcutta), what are the thoughts coursing through one's mind on this weekend? Strangely, as the years have rolled by, the significance of New Year's Day has changed over time — from one of framing resolutions, frivolous and not-so-frivolous, to be acted upon during the next 12 months, to cogitating on the very symbolism of the Day itself, to, strangely, not thinking at all about any special significance of the Day.

In other words, at this stage of one's mental evolution, January 1 is no different from any other day, even if the year has changed. Of more importance is the realisation that there is no need to think why the day should, or should not be, treated any differently than any other day of the year.

Yes, there is one particular thought which cannot be ignored when one tries to take a comprehensive view of one's life by placing oneself in time beyond one's life-span. It is that every passing calendar year marks one more milestone covered by one's breathing existence, the flip side being that there is one less to cover before consciousness ceases.

One remembers a time when, in one's mind, the `future' was not time-barred, as it were. But, today, one tends to think whether one can complete what one wants to do within the two or three decades `left'.

There is no happiness or unhappiness about it; it is just a scheduling problem — which, at least in this writer's case, leads to an enhanced sense of frustration at the shortage of time at his disposal given what he wants to accomplish.

Unnecessary fuss

Indeed, about 10 years ago — while reading Stephen Jay Gould's Questioning the Millennium — the thought uppermost in the author's mind was the quite unnecessary fuss being made about December 31 and January 1 when it came to trying to understand the significance of these dates cosmologically.

Just as someone described his birthday as signifying nothing but the number of times the earth had gone around the Sun after he had arrived on the planet, similarly the significance of New Year's Day in cosmological terms is zero. The progress from December 31 to January 1 just marks one more revolution of the Earth on its axis, something it has been doing on a regular basis ever since the planet was born a few billion years ago.

But then, of course, it is the human mind which has made life worth living after all — life itself being a product of the convergence of a whole lot of factors (physical, chemical, maybe even spiritual) over thousands of millennia.

This is why when the Sun disappears over the horizon on an evening, the riot of colours is perceived by the human mind as a thing of great beauty. But in reality the colours, their variety and juxtaposition, are all dependent on the physical attributes of the atmosphere at that particular point of time and of course the position of the Earth vis-à-vis the Sun. Just as the beauty of a sunset is a matter of perception by the human brain (requiring a Tagore to give it comprehensive and barely explicable shape), so, one thinks, is the human interpretation of January 1 as marking `a new beginning'.

Back to terra firma

Setting aside the pleasurable flights of fathomless fancy one has just indulged in, and setting foot on terra firma once again, the most important thoughts flitting through one's mind on this very special weekend have of course been the execution of Saddam Hussein, the ongoing developments in West Bengal over the issue of agricultural versus industrial development as highlighted by the controversy surrounding the proposed Tata small-car project at Singur, and (with apologies to the reader) the flowering of a rare plant in the grounds of the Raj Bhavan (the erstwhile Government House) in Kolkata, a striking picture of which was published in this newspaper last Saturday.

Except for the rearing of the Victoria Amazonica at Raj Bhavan — in the garden of a house which has been the landmark of the city for the past 200 years — the other two subjects, at least to this writer, hold little interest from the point of view of enjoying the pleasures of life in its myriad forms.

Even so, the Saddam Hussein case is a bit complex and therefore interesting in that while this man, during the time he wielded absolute power in his country, ordered the execution of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of his opponents summarily (which was undeniably a crime against humanity), the military action which dislodged him and led to his arrest and subsequent trial was conceived and initiated unilaterally by one country to the exclusion of the world community, which flies in the face of every tenet of international law as it exists today.

The Singur case

Also of some interest is the Singur case, not because of the protest against it by Ms Mamata Banerjee (her indefinite fast and its calling off late last week have given the issue much more teeth than it would have acquired in its absence) but because it has helped to focus countrywide attention on a subject which was simply not on the national economic agenda till even a few years back.

This is the issue of promoting industrialisation at the expense of farming, an issue which hardly ever cropped up in discussions on economic growth and policy during the first 50 years since Independence.

The fact that the subject is in vogue now probably suggests beyond doubt that the focus on industrialisation, both in terms of policy and implementation, has never been as sharp as it is now, which is yet another indication that the country has made a quantum jump in its quest for economic development.

To some people, these may be weighty subjects on which depends the future of mankind. They probably are, but to this writer the giant plants at the Kolkata Raj Bhavan have enlivened his weekend — the last one of 2006 — no end, so much so that much of it has been ultimately spent reading up on the city's flora and, of course, on Government House, especially its garden where, as Curzon says, "among the flowers" Lord Dalhousie buried his favourite Arab `Maharajah' in 1853.