That was a very bad hair year

Phew! What a year it’s been. Mostly, at the end of the year pointy heads, obfuscators, TV anchors and hacks like me sharpen our wits and our pencils and muster our choicest adjectives to describe the year that’s been in columns like this.

But this year’s events have taken our breath away. We’ve not so much as lived through them as been run over by them; and (mercifully) some of us even have managed to survive them.

So there is no need for words any more. Rhetoric is 2008’s first casualty. You don’t have time for words when you’re under siege. If you’re Aamir Khan you just beat the hell out of the bad guys with your fists. If you’re a frustrated Iraqi journalist you just throw a shoe at the world’s most powerful man.

If you’re the Indian polity, you just bay for war on Pakistan. And if you’re a hapless hack, you just list the events that overwhelmed you in 2009, in no particular order of
importance or merit and hope to hell that they’re done and over with.

So here it is, without embellishments, without comment, without apology or effect, my dhobi list of the events and people that did us in during 2008:

Floods, typhoons, bombings, terror attacks, suicide killers, inflation, recession, devaluation, raped nuns, fuel costs, flying costs, spiralling monthly costs.

Wall Street collapse, imploded banks, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Christians attacked in Orissa, Ramdas Athavale’s goons, Chinese oppression in Tibet.

The Amarnath Shrine Land Issue, Sarah Palin, Mayawati, the Aarushi murder case, Asif Ali Zardari, Raj Thackeray, Shivraj Patil, the Jet Air HR fiasco.

RR Patil, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Rahul Mahajan, VS Achutanandan, Harbhajan Singh, Sreesanth’s dancing, LK Advani, the Ambani wars,
IPL Cheerleaders, SEZs, Mamata Banerjee, George Bush, the Jaipur Blasts, the Ahmedabad Blasts, the Delhi Blasts, the Guwahati Blast, the Kabul Embassy Bombing.

BCCI wars, sting attacks, kidney scams, encounter specialists, human trafficking, rave busts, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, Shipla Shetty-Jade Goody.

Mumbai 26/11, Singh is Kingg, the Economic Meltdown, the Sub-prime Crisis, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

The Indian Left, Bigg Brother, farmers’ suicides, lay-offs, malnutrition, Fashion Weeks, Activist-socialities, networking, wine and cheese launches, media-hungry artists, BPO pink slips.

Over-hyped films, Himesh Reshamiya’s hairstyle, bad rappers, pushy women,
Delhi lobbyists, entitled offspring, luxury mavens.

Salman Khan, Manyata, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sanjay Gupta’s love life, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Madonna-Guy Ritchie, Vasundhara Raje.

Fashionistas, wine snobs, art aficionados, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, the Cash for Votes scam, the Gujjar shootings, the Sensex down turn, high-pitched newscasters, Narendra Modi.

I could go on, but you get the point. It was a year that defies description. It was a year that needs no qualification. It was a year best forgotten.

But hey — you and I are still alive. And we shall crawl into 2009 our guts turned inside out, but still hopeful.

Here’s wishing you a different 2009!

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