IF 2004 were a good angel, I would wish it good morning and ask from it a whole set of boons, like children ask from Santa Claus to fill their Christmas socks.

The first boon that I shall ask this New Year angel is: For God’s sake, don’t be so foggy.

I am sure you will agree with me that we all wish the New Year to be full of sunshine and bright horizons, in all respects -- physical, mental and moral.

And there is a reason for asking this boon. I hate shivering cold and blinding fog. They cause accidents, injury and death on the road. Aircraft are lost, trains derail, cars crash and humans and animals are run over fatally. Sunshine eliminates all these painful accidents and tragedies. There would be less of these awful happenings if human beings were sensible and avoid drunken driving which kills innocent persons and sometimes getting themselves killed. Let they have the clear visions and fogless minds O’ New Year.

I ask for mental and moral sunshine too. I am fed up with affairs of the high and the mighty moral degenerates. The Telgis, the Sharmas and the Judeos. If they were all mentally foggy, their greed for power and money would not be much bigger than their mighty whiskers, if they were not foggy-minced they would not have failed to see the sting operators buzzing around them and landed in political disasters, most of these of their own stupid making.

Moral sunshine and better visibility is more needed than ever this year. Cross-border immorality and dishonesty is polluting all frontiers of human society. Terrorists are called freedom fighters. Killing, looting and raping is called a
" holy war". Robbery is called religion. Hoodlums misuse Hinduism. Murderers spoil the name of Islam. Confidence tricksters and oil thieves call themselves good Christians. Buddhists practise violence. Liars masqueraded as Gandhians, and beasts commit heinous crimes in the name of humanity, money is moral virtue. Poverty is a sin and immoral. Unemployment is considered a crime. Breaking promises is a privilege of the powerful. Suffering injustice is the fate of the common folk. All because the age of immorality is heading for its flaming peak. Please 2004, be kind, be a fire brigade to put out the flames of immorality.

Dear 2004' I have a thousand other boons to ask, like cure Mulayam Singh of woman-hating, cure Mayawati of man-hating, cure Sharad Pawar of Sonia-hating, cure good Hindus of Gandhi-hating, cure politicians of truth-hating and so on and on. I know you are a Leap Year, keen to leap forward and do not have all the time to listen to my never-ending wish list. But at least one more wish, before you leap forward. Please save us, Indians from making a fool of ourselves by practising the ancient art of hypocrisy, which is trying to destroy our democracy.