Joy to the world

It's less than a week to the big day--Christmas--but hope keeps seeping away with heaps and heaps of worrisome news invading every media channel. Early this month the storms and cyclones ravaged parts of Sri Lanka, Indonesia, even while playing truant near the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu. Huge losses of life and great destruction of property made these tragedies almost apocalyptic, but the human spirit, to emerge victorious against all odds, warmed the cockles of many a heart.

Then came the mindless slaughter of the innocents on a beach in Sydney, Australia.
But even that horror show threw up an epic hero, a man willing to risk his life in order to save so many others. But the ugliest image to emerge from all that mayhem was that a father and his son could combine to create the carnage.

Closer to where I am now staying, came the terrible news of the rape of two 14-year-old girls by a man they thought was a friend. To be betrayed by someone you look up to, and then to carry the scars of such a dastardly act all through life, tells us how debased life in our time has become. It also tells us how heinous and anti-social we can get.

Further degredation was in store for me when I made a short trip to London. Visiting an aunt was indeed a memorable occasion, but that joy was short-lived. On the way home, well inside the city limits, I came across a 4-by-3 poster dangling from a street lamp. It's message was simple enough--it just said "Stuck Farmer". But, to me, an outsider, the words conveyed much more. Something, I thought to myself, "was rotten in the state of..." I couldn't help thinking that such graffiti would not be tolerated in my country, for whatever reasons you may think of.

Enough of these negative rantings, dear Readers. It's the season to be jolly, so,let me wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Cheers, people. There's still hope.