The traders leave no stone unturned as they announce discounts (?) for various products. People are made to believe that it is the rare call which everyone can not afford to miss. Hence the seller takes advantage of the situation to push off the stocks, be it new or old! A car dealer advised to go for exchange of old car with a new one as the old one becomes older by one year once it enters January and losing the resale value accordingly. He conveniently hides the fact that the new one bought (through exchange) will also become one year old during that period.
The past few decades had witnessed people visiting various Temples even at wee hours of the New Year Day. It is surprising how a change of this type can occur when we used to see Temples kept open throughout the night only on Maha Shivarathri. Buses are also operated for the convenience of the devotees to visit the Temples on the night of New Year Day. Even if the departure from the age old culture is tolerated, it is hard to assimilate people opting for liquor thinking it as the only way to enjoy and celebrate the day. Even the Govt aims to sell liquor worth one crore!
The daylong programmes on TV mostly orient on movies so as to please the youngsters. This segment seems to be thrilled when the actors wish them on New Year day. But then no one knows the intake at the end of the day. The corporate too plays a role by issuing diaries and calenders on this occasion though the fact remains that very few people have the habit of writing the diary.
What could be the apt way to move about? Each day is a new one at its dawn. We start the day by scheduling as many events as we can. Sometimes we fail to conform to our wish list and the only option is to postpone it to a later date to suit our convenience. Everyday starts with a hope that we will live to meet the agenda. On one fine morning no fresh agenda could be made as the person is no more to plan further. This is the fact of life and we seldom realise it seriously. We are made to sink deeply in the monetary world with sugar coated capsules all around to be consumed.
How many of us realise at the end of the day that we have lost one day in our life? When we look back, most of us may feel sorry for the scant respect we have shown for our life. It has gone for ever. Do we standup atleast now to correct ourselves and reconstruct our activities? Do we build a passion to do good things in the remaining part of our life? Our ancestors advised us to cleanse our thoughts on daily basis as the process would be laborious and impossible if allowed to be unattended.
The oath may be simple, realistic and functionally achievable. The self audit at the end of the year should reveal the progress made and the unfinished objectives. It may be difficult to satisfy everybody in this world. No one expects the objectives to be too stretched. At the same time one must be able to vouch that he has not caused any harm to the society in any form. It is not just enough to wish everyone to be happy. Let us touch our hearts and say that we have never hindered the happiness of any person even unknowingly.
Having said that keeping ourselves away from wrong thoughts that could ruin others, we can not stop at this point. Even some animals and birds do not harm us. Do we wish to live like them? Are we here just to admire at the world and share our thoughts without initiating any action from our end? Creating awareness alone is not important. How far we have set ourselves as examples for others is much more important. Let our actions, be it charity or anything start at Home. It does not matter if it has very few followers in the beginning. A day will come when we will be thrilled to see more people join us to do things in a better way. What could be a better wish than this?
