Five impossible wishes for 2022

Itrsquos time to make wishes again This time we are in pain A microscopic predator has had us scurrying and scrambling for two years now even as it gears up for yet another assault But wishing the Coronavirus gone is not on my list for 2022 science tells me that like viruses before it it will go by itself sooner or laterLong before the virus the moral life of our country has been in free fall When a nation forgets what really matters and lets itself be led and pushed into an alternate reality then it is time for magical thinking again As the year peters out I have five impossible wishes for my countryI wish we will rediscover that money is not meaning Like the West India is now a country where acquiring money is a goal by itself While the pandemic disrupted the lives and livelihoods of 35 million Indians the Sensex rose steadily up 75 per cent from 2020 The number of Indian billionaires went up from 102 to 140 The three richest Indians have R100 billion between them At the height of the pandemic Mr Ambani earned 72000000 times more in an hour than the average Indian cremating a parent in a car parkI wish that in 2022 we relearn that net worth is not the same as net worthiness The richest people I know are not the most human or humane people I know Their money has no value because it makes no difference in the lives of others Like love the only way to have money is to give it awayI wish we learn to separate fable from fact Over the last few years many Indians have come to believe that we are somehow anointed somehow made special by an act of god particularly those who are Hindus We have been told and we have told our children that everything the world enjoys today was somehow conceived and created first in Vedic India from plastic surgery to nuclear energyThere was a time when the sane response to this would have been ldquoThen how come wersquore in such a sorry state nowrdquo But as a nation we no longer poke and prod the things we are told to judge for ourselves what is true and what not We have replaced our thinkers with ideologues and our doubts with certaintiesBut no matter what our rulers boasted we did not save the world from COVID by gifting it a vaccine Nor did we save ourselves We were laid low and revealed to be as naked and vulnerable as every other arrogant country on the planet We finally got rid of COVID just by not counting the numbersIn 2022 I pray that we learn to ask better questions and keep asking them till we get illuminating answers that help us see truth rather than shifting shadowsI wish that we once again cherish discourse over opinion Netflixrsquos savage satire Donrsquot Look Up opens a window into who we are today in India and the planetmdasha suicidal gullible muddleheaded species obsessed with our Instagram images Facebook likes and pet controversies If a planetkiller comet was heading earthwards date of impact known half of us would argue with the other half about whether it was a leftwing conspiracy Rich corporations would go nuts trying to monetise extinction and Jeff Bezos would announce his plans for transporting selected elite humans to an earthlike planet in the galaxyrsquos Goldilocks zoneBut Indians were once deep thinkers who valued discourse debate and argument the very things that make a civilization invincible and great We are now muffled voices living in fear of tax raids and midnight arrests daring not to criticise lest it paint a target on our backsLet 2022 become the year when we rediscover that amazing superpower we once possessed called clear thinkingI wish that we learn to separate spectacle from substance Wersquove eaten a steady diet of sensation for so long that today like frenzied crowds at a Roman arena all we want is blood spilt We want Arnab Goswami to be rude unreasonable obscene and vicious as he tears into his victims We are awed and distracted by the 182metre high statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on a hillock in Gujarat but we forget what he stood formdashintegrity and character in governance business and personal life I pray we heed him once again in 2020Finally I pray that we remember that we survive by holding hands Human beings have rather simple needsmdashkindness cooperation empathy altruism civility and decency No matter how high our GDP and Sensex we will be ourselves once again only when we reconnect with this simple truth I hope that happens in 2022Here viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper