Arrogance. Apathy. Chutzpah.

Year 2024 will reverberate for long, for it exposed how insolence and audacity have infested our lives. Even the just-departed Manmohan Singh wasn't spared

- RAJEEV NARAYAN

"Arrogance is a creature. It does not have senses. It has only a sharp tongue and the pointed finger." - Toda Beta

The world will remember Year 2024 for reasons good, bad and ugly, but it has been unmistakably etched in our collective innards. The year was about bloated egos and self-righteousness that didn't flinch even when causing widespread misery in a shameless climb up the ladder to further infamy and notoriety. The arrogance and chutzpah of the Lords was as blatant as it was malevolent to the common person. And it was left to a few remaining good men to painstakingly nurse and temper in cast-iron lathes our rotting steel.

If only for this reason, Year 2024 is eminently forgettable. The year kicked off with a Union Budget shrouded in parsimony, promising a lot but providing next to nought. The General Elections drilled into those still willing to learn the disparity between homo sapiens, simians and equus africanus asinus. Global military skirmishes unmasked the haves who want still more. A debased leadership saw merit in putting up posters and hoardings, but not in ending misery and bloodshed. Bollywood stars repeatedly changed tune and tack to market questionable film projects. And the mainstream media continued to be as biased as it is spineless and 'news-less'.

The eye-openers were India's average Joes on the streets, who modulated the real, larger story. They showed us that we are changing. For the worse. Money and power rule. Everything else can take a hike down memory lane, humming yesteryears' achche din lullaby while they can, before the dictatorial moral police and its globally-aspirational superpower counterparts snatch the troubadour's ageing lute and harp, along with our few remaining vestiges of self-respect and national pride.

We have fallen indeed