Happy New Year ?

So, we have reached 2020. I’m glad the world did not end in 2012 as the Mayan calendar predicted (if we were correct in interpreting what they predicted). I think my generation, the millennials, have seen maximum transformations in their lifetime. We have seen the information and communication revolution first-hand; from letters and postcards (remember new year greeting cards?) to landlines – Internet - mobile phones – smart phones - voice assistants - interactive household devices and the gig economy. In this world nobody has to wait; everything is instant, on-demand, at your fingertips. But the question is, have all these made the world a better place to live like each invention claimed? Have all these advanced technologies of the world been able to save or fulfil more lives than before? Scientists will say yes, they will probably show the life expectancy numbers of last 50 years to justify and I’d agree to their point. Data is like a knife, it brazenly cuts through feelings and emotions. But when I look around, my heart pokes me with a different story to tell. All these communication gadgets are making people communicate less with each other, pollutants are chocking the lungs of people in all major cities of the world, sea and river beds are getting filled with non-degradable junk, weather has started showing imbalance and extremistic trends, people are more violent than kind with all the killing equipment freely available and being used, animals are getting extinct before their time, people popping up anti-depressants or psychological drugs more to keep sane than to treat diseases……..

I’m not a cynic or a doomsday theorist. Nor I have any data to show that the world is not a better place. But I, along with others who belong to my generation, feel scared of the world we will be leaving our children in. We were supposed to feel safer isn’t it? With all the advancements that are there to support them? But we are not……

The least we can do this new year is promising ourselves not to contribute to this chaos. Let the good sense prevail; do your small bit to leave your children a better (and safer) world to live in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR…