After looking at all the implications of the events that took place in the year, it has been decided to name 2011 as the “Year of The Lemon”.
That’s because while everybody was celebrating the many changes that were taking place, in effect nothing really changed.
(Other names suggested were The Year of the Kela and the Year of the Bakra)
A look at the lemony series of unfortunate events…
1. The Lokpal Lemon: Anna Hazare fasted. His team fumed. Lakhs protested. Millions cheered in their living rooms. Parliament united in August. The result? No Lokpal Act by December 31!
2. The Arab Spring Lemon: People thundered and kicked out the dictators. But who’s coming in their place? Inexperienced fundamentalist parties! Take Egypt: Revolution 1: Kick out the British. Revolution 2: Kick out monarch. Revolution 3: Kick out the dictator. Revolution 4: Coming soon in the future for complete democracy?
3. Cricket Team Lemon: India won the World Cup after 28 years. But no time to celebrate. No victory parades. Immediately play IPL and get fatigued and injured and get thrashed in England. Crash in Melbourne too. Do we really feel like champs?
4. The Sachin Tendulkar Lemon: It’s so glorious to score 99 international centuries. However most fretted and fumed over the 1 century that was not scored for 10 odd months.
5. The Europe Lemon: Heads of states were sacked. But do the new leaders have magic wands to solve the grave financial crisis?
6. The Kudankulam Lemon: Construction on the nuclear plant began in 1997. So what changed in 2011? Fukushima in Japan! So how does that affect Kudankulam?
7. The Mullaperiyar Lemon: The dam is more than 100 years old. So what changed in 2011? A movie called Dam999. Eh?
8. The Andhra Pradesh Lemon: AP won the maximum number of Lok Sabha seats for the Congress in 2009. The reward? In 2011, the Centre fiddled while Telangana was burning!
Of course, most of the events spill into the next year, so there is still time to make lemonade and 2012 could well be The Year of the Lemonade!
© Sunil Rajguru