Have you booked your table for the millennium party?

The world is getting ready to party! Many countries will welcome the year 2000 with extravagant celebrations. We have no such grandiose plans at the national level. But the popular momentum should pick up towards the close of 1999. People can’t help getting excited about a change of millennium and would want to celebrate, observes Mohinder Singh

RIGHT since the 1980s, almost every government department has been projecting a glowing picture of itself by the year 2000. Coming true, these would have by now rid us of things like poverty and illiteracy. With the year 2000 drawing disconcertingly close, many have started mentioning target years of 2010 or 2020.

On the other side, environmentalists have been busy making their doomsday predictions for the year 2000 — an unbreathable city air and water pollution reaching epidemic proportions.

Indeed, the millennium change — the world’s most anticipated date — provokes different responses in different people, dividing them broadly into two opposing camps: the optimists and the pessimists. "Why do we pick the year 2000 as something to pin our hopes and fears on?" wrote the late Isaac Asimov. "Because it is a round number." Though most scholars insist that the third millennium won’t begin until January 1, 2001, the start of the year 2000 has more popular appeal and enormous symbolism.

Now the year 2000 is only a year away. And when it will arrive, the world isn’t likely to be a very different place from what it is today. To that extent it will be a let-down, the way it happened with Orwell’s 1984.

If one thinks over it rationally, there’s nothing particularly earthshaking about the event. It would just be another moment in time, another milestone in human history. And a milestone because the world took to the Gregorian calendar under European hegemony. Well, it marks 2 millenniums of Christ’s birth (assuming Christ was born that year). To the non-Christian world, a majority of people on earth, this does not carry the same emotional charge.

A certain panic had seized medieval Europe when the year 999 was closing. People hastened to churches as the fearful hour drew near. But nothing happened. The world remained the same on the morning of January 1, 1000. And this is what will happen on January 1, 2000.

Of course, some changes will be there. Cheque books and forms will discontinue with 19.., instead add a new 20. And for a whole year, we’ll be using three zeroes, a rare occurrence; it would only repeat itself after the passage of some 30 generations.

The worst complication is reserved for computers. Most computers will think the date, 01/01/00 is January 1, 1900 instead of the year 2000. In computerised working, this could make it impossible to calculate interest, pensions, insurance policies, or inventories. And what about credit cards with expiration dates after January 1, 2000?

The problem dates back to 1970s when computer data was entered on punchcards. As a major cost-saving device, only two digits of a year were punched, all dates assumed to begin with 19—.

The result: every software system that is date dependent will encounter problems when dealing with years beyond 1999. It is estimated that a rectification programme for computer networks all over the world could cost $100 billion — a windfall for software firms.

The coming millennium change has triggered a host of books, even films and songs; and many more of these should be on the way. There is the "Doomsday 1999 A.D. by Charles Berlitz, and other titles such as Countdown to the Millennium and The Millennium Book of Prophecy. Quite a few millennium magazines have sprung up.

And all sorts of millennium organisations are forming up. In the USA for example, they have the Millennium Institute, the Millennium Society, the Millennium Symposium, and several similar groups.

The civilisation’s most spectacular birthday is giving rise to numerous millennium works and well-publicised plans for its celebration.

Britain’s most ambitious project is the Millennium Dome, a gigantic complex of exhibits, stationed prominently on the prime meridian for Greenwich Mean Time (Web site www. greenwich 2000.com/exhibition. htm). Scheduled to open at midnight, December 31, 1999, it will be the largest cable-supported dome arena in the world, big enough to accommodate two large football stadiums. The dome’s 20-acre glass-fibre canopy, with retracting sides for warm weather, will seat 12,500 people and offer a multimedia "journey through time". Over 12 million people are expected to visit the dome during the year 2000.

A 500-ft-tall ferris wheel has also been installed on the Thames across the Houses of Parliament. This carries 960 passengers in 60 closed capsules on a 20-minute ride, offering views up to 30 miles beyond the capital. Mini-turbines run the wheel using tidal power while solar cells power cabin lights.

Other commemoration works include a pedestrian bridge over the Thames and an entertainment complex with 32 movie theatres, two hotels, and two stages.

For Italy, it’s a uniquely sacred celebration: a Holy Year that begins on Christmas Eve 1999 and will last through 2000 (Web sites www. xibalba. com/solt/jubilee). The Vatican expects 30 million visitors during the year.

In Paris, a huge egg will descend down the Eiffel Tower, revealing hundreds of television screens broadcasting programmes from countries around the world (Web site www. toureiffel.fr/an2000-uk/). On the Left Bank, a 660-ft "Tower of the Earth"is being built to celebrate environmental awareness.

France also plans construction of four gigantic clocks. One is a 30-tonne timepiece with chimes that can be heard for 20 miles. The Place de la Concord in Paris is being transformed into the largest sun dial clock. Another hour glass will hold 100 tonnes of sand.

In New York, more than half a million revellers are expected to spend New Year’s Eve in Times Square. The party will begin at 7 a.m. on December 31, 1999 (the time the new millennium begins in South Pacific) and continue for 24 hours. While giant TV screens will broadcast highlights of global celebrations from all 24 time zones, images of Times Square revelry will be televised to viewers around the world(Website www.timess quarebid.org/in-ex2.html).

On the West Coast are plans for a megaconcert called "Party 2000" from Dec 28, 1999, to January 1, 2000. The 4500-acre California site will have over a hundred rock bands and an expected audience of 2.5 million to attend various events. And the concert will end with a 2000-gun salute to mark the close of the second millennium.

Germans, practical as ever, are hosting a bimillennium world’s fair called "Expo 2000" in Hanover from June, 1999 (Websitewww. expo2000.de/ englisch/inhalt/index.hmtl). Around 40 million visitors are expected.

A Japanese travel agency is booking cruise ships that will sail for the international date line, where the passengers will be the first human beings to see the dawn of the new millennium.

The Millennium Society of Virginia is planning a huge party at the Pyramids, the greatest wonder of antiquity. And it has booked the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth to carry quests on a 10-day journey from New York to Egypt. All the 1,800 berths on the luxury ship have been sold out. A similar gathering is planned at the Great Wall of China, another amazing monument of ancient human endeavour.

Others are promoting the idea of a get-together of the world’s political heads or leading intellectuals on January 1, 2000. Some do-gooders are trying to whip up enthusiasm for setting up a human chain going right round the world to promote the brotherhood of man. All sorts of zany ideas to mark the occasion are in the air.

Meanwhile, some famous restaurants have started accepting bookings for the evening of December 31, 1999. Indeed, places like Savoy Grill in London already stand fully booked.

A recent London labour survey has brought out another problem: a majority of workers at bars, hotels and security staff to cope with drunken revellers are unwilling to come for work on the millennium New Year’s Eve as they themselves want to join the fun. Others are asking 10 times the usual rate; £ 40 an hour against £ 4. Some entertainment establishments around the meridian line at Greenwich are contemplating the creation of the first £ 1,000-a-shift waiter. Women are even less prepared than their male counterparts to be persuaded into work.

The world is getting ready to party! Many countries will welcome the year 2000 with extravagant celebrations. We have no such grandiose plans at the national level. But the popular momentum should pick up towards the close of 1999. People can’t help getting excited about a change of millennium.