And so December begins. The last 31, no 19 days, of a year quite extraordinary in its sways and swings of misfortune. The north wind seemingly behind, now blows forward in cold cruelty, numbing minds and heads and nasal tracts, never ceasing, ever increasing, while mortal fire stretches outwards in desperate seek of charcoal glow.

Sleepy heads toss and turn under layers of cotton wool; morning never comes a minute too late, which is as well, ladies and gentlemen, for even the hands of time slow down after recklessly spinning around in clockwise motion for all of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 ½ seconds since the last chimes of happy new year, which seems like yesterday, only not, for tomorrow never comes, and we live to live more dangerously, at least that's what some of us like to think, and thinking of the past is what all melancholics are naturally accustomed to, which is not to say we should be customarily sad, but the new year, though promising much, customarily delivers only little.

2004 was the year of the monkey, and a leap year as well. It was the year in which the 23-year old monkey on our backs finally bit us where it hurt the most. We have never tried harder to shake ourselves loose from this primate and the weight of uncivilisation it burdens us with. We shooed and booed it with big, harsh, humungous words like "draconian" and "inhuman", and for a change, everyone stopped by to give us a second glance. We gave a whole new meaning to the word "Naked Fury", and put together loopholes in the united we stand theory.

We striked with a vengeance, choked, gagged, spat, cursed, smashed, burnt, ran riot, and then cleaned up the mess to welcome a Doctor and impress a South Asian safari. We made the front pages for the better part of the monsoon session, made our chosen Mass of Legal Apes scratch their heads, dig their noses, chew their nails, and scurry back and forth to New Delhi to earn frequent flier miles in search of some olive branch to wave at the gnarling, snapping population at their heels. We ranted, raved, swore, cheered and prayed in the same breath, and when we ran out of breath, promised to do it all over again.

This was also the year of the power cut, demolition rut, school shut, kidnapping spurt, cold blooded murder spot, enquiry commission as afterthought, mudslide and flashflood unheard, unforeseen and unthought, jungle warfare through press release fought, makeover and makeup hurryup, and not necessarily in the same order. This was a year in which state and law and order took on entirely contrasting and opposite definitions. The concept was unclear even before that, but it became really fuzzy this year, with new words like "Unified Command", "Trial Basis", "Mass Resignation", and "All Clear" introduced to an increasingly irate number of electoral subscribers, who either had no phones, no network, no roads, no medicines, no jobs, no salaries, no electricity, no running water, no fuel, no oil, no security, no well-being, or any of the other comforts and amenities that ballot-powered Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic people are supposedly entitled to.

This was the blockade, protest, dharna, strike, curfew, sit-down and stand-up without turnaround year. A year in which public outrage went from loud yells to yawls, and back to yawns, especially the yawning divide between what politicians say and what they actually mean - which drew more yawns, especially when they reminded us of the little ways in which we contributed to making this state a worse place to live.

In other political developments, a mild-mannered economist most unexpectedly replaced a tired part-time poet as Prime Minister, and continued to do his best to avoid using the S word at the beginning of every soft-spoken sentence and proclamation.

The land responded to the folded hand, squinted its eyes at the "shining" glare of the saffron band, especially under a scorching Indian summer sun, which proved that heat and light are not necessary complements to electoral success, and voted back to power a party upholding the widely rubbished theory of dynastic rule, which by the way, very nearly almost gave Sushma Swaraj the Persis Khambatta Star Trek look, and the Jane Fonda Power Diet food - something which we would have all loved to see. What we did see was the return of the good old-fashioned political vendetta. What began with Shibu Soren, continued with Uma Bharati, and promises to continue with Tehelka. Its payback time.

On the other side of the globe, a bushman from Texas found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but still convinced most Americans that the war on terror was still very much on, with or without Arnold Schwarzenegger, who as we totally recall, personifies the prevailing fashion of extroverted he-men, the tough guy who saves the world with a terrific sock on the jaw of the bad guys, and with the bang-bang of his pistol.

But no complaints from this side of the world so far, as long as the dollar gets outsourced, and the rupee gets insured, which also depends on the Marx secured, with or without Harkishen Singh and Sitaram Yechury, or any other tainted and painted Minister to boo and boot, but neither the former nor the latter believe in either the fear of God or money, and Laloo Prasad couldn't quite care less anyway what anyone believes in, as long as the lines and tracks are biji, and Rabriji continues to agree with Soniaji.

This was the year where the unexpected met the unprepared. Even in sports. We stayed up all night to watch the best football from Europe, and watched with dismay as a team with players having 15-letter long names upset everyone, including ourselves, and won quite unconvincingly. We went to the Olympics and returned with one medal and two life suspensions. On the brighter side, we beat Pakistan on their turf, and then returned the favour, extending our hospitality to the Australians as well. We should have entered the finals of the Santosh Trophy, but for a solitary loose boot, and unfortunately New Delhi is not the Khuman Lampak, and I fear we are more accustomed to conventional shoot-outs than penalties.

Another shootout in the south accounted for an infamous moustache, whose trimmed ends were never found, and are rumored to be divided equally between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments, and who will hopefully see it all as water under the bridge. More shootouts everywhere else between cops and bad guys, cops and cops, and vice versa. The body count just kept rising, and so did prices, mercury levels, and along with it blood pressure levels, which confirmed what conservationists, naturists, apocalyptics and doomsdayists have been saying all along - that man will be extinct long before the rest of the planet.

On a more personal note, this was the year in which I finally decided to speak my mind - something which I'm still not sure is exactly the wise thing to do, in the midst of wild things and savages. But this was the year of the monkey, who according to Charles Darwin, happens to be our distant cousin, and the tendency to chatter and brood comes quite naturally, which does not in any way justify the cat, which sounds cooler than monkey anyway, which by the way, happens to be a bad word used by the members of my tribe.

But 2005 is the year of the Rooster, rest assured, and the rooster promises a lot better fare than the monkey. The rooster translates into white meat for those with good taste, and it also translates into crowing early for those who look forward to accomplishment. It also translates into a bad word for those with bad taste in language, but don't you dare think or say that.

The year ahead represents a blank page in which we are free to fill up with good words, horribly bad ones, or ugly reflections of the same old face which hasn't grown any younger, but hopefully wiser, saner, safer, and less scarier. And in case you don't, I shall be there to tell it all to you, in the words of my choosing, and the time and place of my own making.