It's two weeks into the year and it already feels old. This year crept in on slow legs, carrying on its prematurely aging back the burden of false promises and stillborn ideas, dressed in a new veil of shiny hope. From time to time this covering slips off to show us that underneath, there is little that is new. It is just the inexorable passage of time. Yet we accept the fiction. We choose to be intoxicated by the effervescence of the market and charmed by the seductive ringing of bells of various kinds. We wake up on a day marked as the beginning of a new calendar and believe that we are changed. That the world is changed. Yes, I received my share of phone calls, emails and text messages. I stayed up till past midnight and colluded in a round of hugs and handshakes. I posted a post on Facebook and responded to others' posts as well. I willingly contributed to the conspiracy of expectation and excitement. After all, ritual is an important part of our lives, and the ritua
making sense of the everyday