…………Year 2008……….
(Good, bad and the ugly)
Every year has an impact of its own on every individual and these lasting impacts shape the forthcoming year for us. The year 2008 left behind many incidents on the entire world, some of them are memorable while some of them leave behind a bitter taste.
If I think of a review for the year 2008 from the world’s perspective than I would land up being unfair or rather disappointing many countries as many incidents and events that have occurred have been un-noticed and are beyond my knowledge. Therefore I though why to disappoint the world, when many of the events did take place in my own motherland – “India”.
So, I welcome you all to the review of the year 2008.
Before I thought of writing this article I thought of throwing a question at my friends and analyzing or observing their answers and thoughts on it.
So, I asked them “How would you define/recall the year 2008?
For some of them it was another terrorist attack at heir brains, which kept them busy scratching their heads, while some declared it as “A stupid Question”, but for some of my wise and thoughtful friends it was a question to be thought over.
I received some very interesting answers; some of them said that 2008 was;
·A year of their personal achievements.
·A year for their struggle for management schools.
·A year of birth of their niece.
·A year of history being written in American Presidential elections.
·A year of Bihar floods.
·A year of economic depression.
·A year of terror.
·A year of common man breaking his silence.
·A year of Indian sports.
·A year of Action and Drama.
Well, it was interesting to note that the youths of India are well aware of their surroundings and the various incidents that are affecting it. It was totally their perception and I too agree with it.
But I also feel that a year can be divided into three phases, namely:
·Good.
·Bad.
·Ugly.
Oops! It sounds like Clint Eastwood’s movie, “The good, bad and the ugly”.
Well for me I would say Good Phase of 2008, would be the Indian sports. When the entire world was down with the Euro ’08 fever, which saw Spain’s domination over Germany and a high energetic performance of Rafael Nadal making him just unbeatable on the clay and ending Roger Federer’s wining streak at the Wimbledon and also pushing aside Federer to take World No. 1 position. While these actions were taking the entire world by storm, Indian sportspersons were also adding enough excitement and energy to the high drama that the sports were providing to its viewers.
The Indian cricket team had just destroyed the winning streak of Australian cricket team, and they were dominating the further series against Sri Lanka when Ajantha Mendis did cast a spin web over the Indian Batting line up which the Indians failed to understand, and this is a series that they would like to wash off from their entire year’s performance. The Indian Cricket Team were just unstoppable after the loss to the Sri Lanka, they bounced back to beat them, Indian team faced a humiliating defeat by the Proteas, but came back hard to win and level the series, they destroyed Australia in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, sending a message to the Australian that their days as the world’s best are on the verse of extinction. England too faced similar fate as that of the Australians giving Indians the confidence and encouragement to move ahead and rule the world of cricket. The Indian Cricket also saw master blaster Sachin Tendulkar surpass Brain Lara’s 11,953 runs in Test Cricket to become the world’s highest run scrore in the history of Test Cricket. Indian Test Captain Anil Kumble and former captain Sourav Ganguly hung up their boots from the national side ending their remarkable carrier.
The game of cricket will also be remembered for Indian Premier League, which not only brought big money into the bags of the players and player auction but also saw cheerleaders providing much needed entertainment to the audience, also the world’s best players competing against each other in a domestic tournament.
While cricket was not the only sport where Indians were making news, there was an important sport event that took place in China--Beijing Olympics where sportspersons such as Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt were leaving their mark, so the Indians thought of leaving theirs as well (though it was just a small mark, but we should remember, a small but effective).
Abinav Bindra won the gold medal in the Men’s 10m air rifle becoming the only first Indian to win a gold medal in an individual event at the Olympics, while Sushil Kumar and Vijender Kumar won bronze medal in Wrestling Men’s freestyle 66kg and Boxing Middleweight 75kg respectively.
There were other Indian sportspersons who shook the sports arena in the respective field of expertise:
1. Indian golfer Shiv Shankar Prasad Chowrasia won the MGF Indian Masters and at US PGA Championship Jeev’s performance is the best by any Indian so far at any major tounament, he finished 9th.
2. Indian Tennis Team qualified for the Davis Cup World group play-off.
3. Indian shooters Gagan Narang and Ronjan Sodhi won bronze medal in 10m Air rifle at ISSF World cup in Beijing and gold medal in double trap event at World cup in Belgrade respectively.
4. Indian Junior Hockey team retained their Junior Asia Cup hockey title.
5. Indian football team qualified for the 2011 Asian Cup by winning the AFC Challenge Cup and also Dempo became the first Indian club to qualify for semi-final of AFC Cup.
6. Badminton player Sania Nehwal became the first Indian to reach the semi-final of Singapore Open Super Series, also won the Chinese Taipei Grand Pix tournament and further went on to break into the top 10 of the badminton world.
7. Viswanathan Anand retains his world title after defeating Vladimir Kramnik.
Well , it was not just sports where we Indians made news it also in other fields such as in Space world our scientists did make a lot of noise by setting a world record by launching Polar satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C9) that will place 10 satellites in the orbit in a single mission.
Also the Indian scientists have been successful of the Chandrayaan-I, which ejected Moon Impact Probe (MIP) which landed on the moon making India as the fifth nation to deliberately land an object on the moon.
Once again the Booker Prize did come India’s way and honored Man Booker Prize for Fiction to Indian writer Aravind Adiga for his novel “The White Tiger”.
At the Miss World event our Indian representatives also made their presence felt, Parvathy Omanakuttan Nair, was the first runners up of Miss World 2008, she was the second runners up of Miss World Top Model 2008.
While these events were taking place in and around the globe and all these achievements were bringing a smile on the face of Indians there was another Individual who seemed to be more than a Rock Star who made not only India but the entire world to swing and dance to his music. Well friends I am referring to none other than Mr. Barack Obama.
The United States Presidential Elections 2008 turned out to be not less exciting than the Olympics or the Euro Cup, and the results was just too much too handle for the entire world. Mr. Obama was the only talk of the year whether it be men, women or children all their hopes were linked to his victory, and people hoped and wished that the 44th President of USA would bring a change to the world that would benefit everyone, as he himself was creating history by becoming the first black man to the President.
Well the year seems to bring a lot of cheers (well I am pretty much sure about the fact that there are many more good events that did take place but I have not mentioned it, I ask you to please pardon me for that and do leave behind a note sating what I missed.),so now we should take a look at the so called Bad phase of 2008.
If you think for your self bad thinks overlap the ugly but it is not necessary that all bad things end up being ugly they can be controlled from turning ugly, so I think the bad and ugly would overlap so I will try to distinguish the two and hope to attain my objective.
The year 2008 brought many events which Indians consider it to be bad and these things could have been dealt in a better way. Since we began praising the year with India’s achievement in the sports arena, so I would like to bring the bad curtain down on the sports, well the loss to the Sri Lanka’s Mendis mystery and the Proteas humiliations have been discussed above, but the Sydney Test match did draw a lot of attention where Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh were involved in the racially abuse controversy which did find Bhajji guilty and was fined for calling Symonds “monkey”. Well it seems that Harbhajan Singh is fond of getting himself into news not through his Performance but also through other means, this time he made news, when he slapped Sreesanth during an IPL match between Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians.
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai made the England team to cancel the last two ODIs and they returned back to England, later after certain opinions they decided to come back to play the test matches.
The government of India also directed the Indian cricket team not to tour Pakistan; also the financial and security concerns landed up in postponed the first edition of Twenty20 Champions League, featuring 8 teams from 5 nations till October 2009.
The Men’s hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time in 80 years, and the women’s hockey team too followed the same fate. The other hopes for the medals at the Beijing Olympics ended the country’s hopes (but India did get medals from other sportspersons), the sportspersons who failed to perform at the Olympics were:
1. Manavjit Singh - Shooting (Trap Men)
2. Rajyavardhan Rathore - Shooting(Double Trap Men)
3. Anju Bobby George - Athletics (Long Jump)
4. Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati - Tennis (Men’s Doubles)
5. Dinesh Kumar - Boxing (-81 kg category)
6. Sania Mirza - Tennis (Women’s Singles)
Well, its not just sports where tings went wrong for the Indians but things did go wrong at the Parliament when our ministers went on to show bundles of money in the session stating that they were being bribed by the government to support them, well such events which sends a message to the entire world as to how our country is governed by our beloved ministers, this is Indian Politics and the loop hole is as clear as a crystal which would help them to plan and carryout their activities in our country.
The encounter incident at Jamia Nagar in New Delhi brought a great amount of tension in the locality and also the Muslim students leaving in that area. It did bring a lot of disturbance in the life of the students as the police verification took the residential areas with storm. The department at various cities of the country failed to act to the hoax phone calls regarding to the bomb blasts and also after the incidents the security wasn’t as the expectation, the incident stating at a Mumbai terminal states it all as to how effective our police are.
Maharastra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Mr. Raj Thackeray accusing Mr. Bachchan did catch up a lot of attention but that wasn’t enough for Mr. Thackeray he needed more of the limelight so he decided to clean Mumbai and free it from the North Indians residing and working here, well Mr. Thackeray it seems that you are really missing the times of independence when we were desperate to free India from British. One needs to remind him that India is for the Indians and they have every right to live in any part of the country (except the border and areas related to security issues).so when was it that Maharastra or Mumbai was not for North Indians, this incident led to the North Indians being beaten by the MNS followers making Mumbai an unsafe place for the all the North Indians. The incident also led to the death of Rahul Raj, a 23 year old boy from Patna who was living in Mumbai, who hijacked a bus and wanted to send a message to Raj Thackeray. His death sent an anger wave among the students of north India and the student body in Bihar went on roads protesting against MNS and Raj Thackeray.
Well, its time for our ministers to grow up and stop all these unwanted troubles in our country which will only end up dividing our country. We need to be conscious and not follow such activities stop all such events against each other which would not benefit any one but the politicians.
It is better if I move on with the last and the third phase of the year Ugly else I would land up mixing the bad and the ugly; so this phase would be more of the terror that has affected the entire nation in the year 2008 and if I am not wrong that this year’s most Important Personality of the Year award would goes to the “Terrorist”.
The series of bomb blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahemdabad and Delhi made them the most actively involved people in the world. They kept challenging the security of the country and kept the entire country on high alert throughout the year making a mockery of our security system.
Well, the terrorists were not the only people who stole the show in this phase of 2008; it was also the Bihar Floods, which seems to be one of the worst floods, affecting over 2.3 million people in the northern part of Bihar.
But what made even bigger news and shook the entire world was The Collapse of Wall Street. The collapse of the Wall Street left the entire world in the economic insecurity, there was job cut in every sector and the share market just crashing every day and the economic crisis made the countries close their market temporarily. The economic crisis has not affected the companies but has also affected the common man as well with the inflation rate soaring up to a great level. The dollar price rising in no good sign as the jobs are being reduced and salaries being cut the, unemployment rate rising is certainly an issue of panic. The export order reducing by 40%-45%, and the fresh graduates not being recruited for jobs is just not good sign for the youths of the country. We have seen and felt its heat in India as well the job cut in the airlines hospitality service, the panic in the IT sector, the share market etc all the heat we have faced so its difficult to express the feeling of the crisis.
While the crisis was what everyone was troubled and worried about when the terrorists decided to end the year own their own note leaving behind an impact which would mark this year to their name. The 26th November 2008 Mumbai attack which left not only made the Indians cry but also the entire world, it also broke the silence of the common man to ask its government to wake up and make them aware of fact that they have been elected to be our leaders to govern our country. The Mumbai incident took many lives destroyed the emotions and the security of the country, ATS chief Hemant Karkare along with many police officers of the Maharastra Police Department lost their lives.
The Mumbai terrorist attack united the entire country and the people came out to the streets to question the government regarding their security and welfare. The candlelight rallies were carried out in the entire country.
The year ended in with terror and the New Year 2009 began with terror as there were a series of bomb blast in Guwahati, Assam.
So, what do you think “How will you Define, recall the year 2008”? and will the year 2009 end on a better note than 2008……
