Here's Wishing Us - Again! - Happy Birthday
Birthdays are when we take stock, replenish, and make a tentative plan to move forward. I say tentative because the future, we know, is always uncertain.
We inhabit the same planet, and yet each country is mired in its own gook, whether it's the news cycle, the arts, festivals, religion, politics, or sport.
We often forget that we are the same human being, descended from the same common ancestor. Which is why New Year's Eve is so special.
The annual changing of guard is a universal occasion. It's our collective birthday.
I spent the better part of this year trying to escape Indian samachar.
On apps like Haystack, one can tune into live news from local American TV stations: Milwaukee, Louisville, Oklahoma, Tampa Bay, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and Champlain Valley. The provincial American khabar train runs on its own rail tracks: tornadoes, guns, apples, doughnuts, Trump, runaway pet pigs and stories like, 'Man Meets Pilot in his Baby Photo Who Inspired His Flying Career'.
Distances separate us, but deep inside, we reside in the same village. Just the flora and fauna are different.
This was the year of the thick transparent spectacle frame and the Indian single malt; of Shane MacGowan, Sinead O' Connor (who once snitched to the cops about the former using heroin — all is forgiven now), Tina Turner, Harry Belafonte, Cormac McCarthy and Matthew Perry dying.
The year of yet another Rolling Stones Top 10 album, the Gen Z trends of silent walking — walking without phone or iPod — and quiet quitting — working the bare minimum, putting in no more effort or enthusiasm than necessary, and, of course, WorldSpace Satellite radio.
Wait, what?! Sorry, WorldSpace was another year, but that's what happens to me at the end of most
