As I tried to weave my way through the web service I received an sms,… wishing me a happy new year;
“Hmm… this one’s a bit early” I thought
“What’s the date today again? Oh 31st December, 2009. Oh I didn’t realize. The new year starts tomorrow!”
The thoughts rushed through my mind filling me with as much enthusiasm as,… well, the web service I was working on.
For me, it was nothing to be excited about. If you think about it realistically, just for a second there, you would realize too, that there IS nothing to celebrate actually.
Would the world look any different tomorrow? na.. I don’t think so..
Would I be any happier or satisfied tomorrow? Naa.. fat chance, then why should I celebrate?
For me, everything’s going to be the same. I’ll follow the same routine in Jan 2010 as I followed in Dec 2009.
Then why on earth are the people outside my window celebrating with fireworks, I ask myself at 12 AM, 1 Jan 2010.
This is how we begin the new year… with fireworks.
What for?
Fireworks, or any kind of celebration for that matter, seem like an utter wastage of time, another bunch of money down the drain.
Should we, as a nation, be celebrating new year when we have so many things to mourn about?
Why do we keep forgetting we have nothing to celebrate today. Not this time, at least. Not this year round.
No milestones achieved.
No promises kept.
In fact, as far as I can see, there is only LOSS.
So many lives lost. And if that wasn’t enough to sooth our urge to destroy we went ahead with burning shops and bringing chaos to an otherwise saddened nation.
We literally ended the year with a BANG. Bravo!!
In this new year, though I don’t see the sanity behind calling it new except the fact that now the wall in my room will be adorned with a new calendar, we have another set of recently unemployed people to worry about, yet another family hoping for justice and mourning the loss of their loved ones, a collapsing economy with little hope, brand new addition to the category of not-school-going kids because they will not be joining school after vacations considering the sad fact that the means of income for their household, the shops their fathers owned is now no more than a mere ashtray.
Yes!!! NOW I see the reason behind the celebrations going on out there. It’s all clear now. Yes, they have much to celebrate. No one can stop them. No, not even rational thinking.
And then there are all those people who keep asking me about my new year resolutions. And I find myself at a loss of words when I remember that this time around I have decided not to go with the New Year thingy. After all, this is not OUR new year, is it?
Yeah, yeah we don’t actually go by the Islamic Calendar, though we never fail to take an off if the day is an important one according to the Islamic Calendar. This way we get to enjoy the benefits of BOTH the calendars. Lucky, smart people we are..
I have nothing against following solar Calendar. What I am against is adopting THEIR custom of celebrating new year.
And I am not against resolutions either. But why do we have to wait for a new year to begin so that we can try to be what we want to be. Why do they have to be New Year resolutions? Why can’t we start with our resolutions or work towards achieving or goals in the middle of the year? And why do we have to have resolutions for an entire year? Why can’t we take one month at a time?
And if new year resolutions have an importance of their own, why didn’t we come up with anything at the start of Muharram. Simply because that’s not how it’s done. That’s not how the world does it. And we, obviously, have to do what everyone else does.
How many of us thought we should start this new year with offering prayers instead of fireworks and sms? How may of us left our beds for Fajar prayers after a night of unearned celebrations?
Nothing wrong with analyzing the year that just passed, trying to sort out what can be done to make the coming year better. But is that really what we’re looking for when we wish each other a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR? Really?!!?
7 comments:
Hmm, I can bet you were not at a loss of words, while you were writing this article. I think each word of this article comes straight from the heart with your mind authenticated it simultaneaously as it came out.
For the first time, I find myself at a loss of words and believe me this rarely happens, so congrats to you, but the only reason for me being at a loss words is that I agree to whatever you have written.
Thats the root cause of the problem years change (come and go) but people they are not prepared to change (for the better). And in the world of today all our actions are means to show off that if you can do it so not only can I, but I can go one step ahead. There is really nice phrase for it in Urdu which goes like Dunya kee Andhee Taqleed.
We only try to take the lead in worldly objects and gains and when it comes to Islam instead of following we start analyzing. O Allah, please show us the path of the Holy Prophet and revert us back to the true Islam, the only true source of success, Aameen.
You know what, we don't have an identity of our own. Sad but true. We only do what others do. Each of our customs are driven by others. Maybe because it takes courage to think on our own, to come with our own ideas and start implementing them. We are actually afraid of our own selves, that is why we only follow. Thats what we are good at, following others...
I cant agree more when you say that why does there have to be new years resolutions? Why cant we take one month, or a day for that matter? Why can't we just think that I'll offer all my prayers with the congregation today, or at least on time? Why can't we not think of not hurting anyone today? Why does it have to be one year down the road? Only because thats how it is done, as you mentioned.
This is a great post my friend. It touched me. Great post indeed (Y)
@ammadsal
You are yet again the first one to appreciate a post of mine. Thank you very very much :D
You know while writing this post that story came to my mind, the one which reflects "Dunya kee andhee taqleed".. the one where some experiment was done on monkeys, they were taught to do something and the rest just followed, remember that story?
Aameen to your prayer. :)
May Allah bless us all Ameen. :)
@Haris Gulzar
I was a bit scared when I was publishing this post, because it's a bit controversial.
But I still posted it because for me my thoughts are correct. And I wanted to get this all out of my head, write it down, publish it, so people can read it even if they don't agree with it. These are my views and I should not feel wrong about them, and so I published this post.
And it's so good to see your's and ammadsal's appreciating comments.
Thanks a lot. Really appreciate your appreciation. Needed it. :)
And yes, if we keep our goals a bit smaller they become more practical and much easier to reach. :)
Very nice post girl! :) This time I also spent 31st Dec and 1st Jan trying to figure out if there's anything to be Happy about the new Year.While I could mostly see looming shadows of darkness...I also saw a number of achievements that our country men/women have made in the past year making us all proud...whether it be T20 win or some intelligent people from the local IT industry winning at APICTA lately, it gave me some hope about the future of this nation and a reason to perhaps celebrate as well; but that still didn't just the *way* we generally celebrate. Aerial firing, bhangra and sort is way to get temporary happiness but if we look beyond and help those less privileged than us in any way we can, perhaps go spend some time with them, we can get lasting happiness for them and ourselves and that should be celebration as well as reason enough for new year to be HAPPY!
@Fariha
Thanks a lot :D
And also thanks for highlighting the achievements we made during the past year. I focused only on the dark shadows while forgetting altogether about the thin ray of light, the little hope that we have to live on. :)
And aerial firing!!! Seriously.. what fun is that anyways??
And well said about the true happiness we could gain by helping the less privileged.
That's a really nice and realistic approach of thinking. I absolutely agree that we must look back in past year for the reason to correct ourselves for coming year
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