E-Paper
The year that it was
The past and the future are never the same tense as the present.
2004 was not the way it was meant to be, announced auntyji. Mr S looked up from his newspaper. Nothing in life ever was, he said mildly. The past and the future were never the same tense as the present. An angry young man in the US burned down his parents’ house on Christmas Day when he discovered he hadn’t been given a present, reported Mr S, reading from his newspaper. Looking back and looking ahead and looking up and down were not the same as looking sideways, said Mr S, removing his reading glasses and taking a swift peek through his window at his buxom young neighbour in short skirt and tights.
Mr S told auntyji that at this time of year there were only three types of human beings to be found: pessimists, optimists and realists. Continuing to peer out of his window at the young woman, he informed auntyji that he belonged to the third category. He knew that his hair was gone forever, that his Bride and Prejudice would stay, his rheumatism would never get better, that the Iraq crisis would take years to resolve, the nanny’s visa much less, that the wrapping paper on the outside was always better than the gift inside, that the festivities always left him with indigestion and that they (and Bush) would stay on. They would never go back to India to retire. They had already retired to the living room of their son’s house, where there never seemed to be enough space for their possessions. Peace and love and goodwill to all beings on earth (and satisfactory recycling of wrapping paper, trees, cards and ribbons) after Christmas on the other hand, was optimism, he said.
What of Abu-Ghraib tortures and Beslan and the terror attack on Madrid, and all the terrible headline events of 2004, she challenged. The world, unlike house prices, was what it was. No more, no less, he replied. Janet Jackson’s publicly exposed breast at the Superbowl was much more, he thought privately. What could not be cured had to be endured and stored, he said.
Auntyji, on the other hand, was a pessimist, he ventured gently. She bristled. He reminded her she was convinced their daughter-in-law could never cook. She remained silent.
What of the tsunami and the thousands of people who had lost their lives as the year was ending, asked auntyji. Was it possible to go into 2005 in an optimistic mood after a disaster of those proportions had struck? Mr S remained silent.
