2023 in nutshell: Blend of breakthroughs & challenges
A year ends. A year begins. No ordinary thing. For, between a year, something that can change the world can happen. Embossed in the glory of its length, a year often forgets the small units that make it.
Just come to think of it, in the past two millenniums, per-se, 2000 years have passed. A large number to say.
However, 2000 might be a very small number for the indefinitely tremendous opportunities of triumph that humanity must have encountered in these years.
Even in a single calendar year, how many reasons to rejoice can we find in a single day.
However, the underlying question that certainly clouds this thought is — how many moments of happiness do we encounter in a year and how many do we really discover.
Well, to even condense this entire year in a single article would become nightmarishly long. However, certainly, I may exercise my creative liberty to at least recall a few special moments for India in 2023.
To begin with, this was, in all of its certainty, an extraordinary year, filled with triumphs and tribulations, not just at a personal level, but also at a national level.
Looking back in retrospect, it seems to me that three great events can be identified as being the landmark days for India, which will forever be embossed and etched in the history of the country.
In the chorological order, one can conspicuously see the inauguration of the new Parliament Building as the landmark day for Indian Democracy. As our democracy incorporates itself with a new temple of democracy, one must continue to hope and pray that the next year is one of democratic ethics and values for the mother of democratic values.
Another key event that was met with great joy from Indians was the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s lander rover, on the Moon’s unexplored and unconquered South Pole, which has not yet been vanquished by any other space agency.
Our scientists at the ISRO, have most certainly demonstrated immense resilience and scientific capabilities, which makes the fact undoubted that the ISRO is certainly an indispensable space agency, for the entire globe.
However, now, following the mention of two positive events in a row, the author feels it vital to take a detour from the chorological order, to save one affirmative event for the last and mention an event that is difficult to come to terms with before that.
For an ordinary sports viewer, this must have been quite easy to guess. To make it even more specific, this is certainly known to an average cricket fan, for I am talking about the heartbreaking ODI World Cup Final Defeat of India to Australia, despite winning all other matches in the important tournament.
To meet a bitter loss in the final match after having won all other matches in the tournament was certainly an event for sadness.
However, as many other authors, too, have eventually pointed out, crying over a worthwhile defeat is unnecessary.
Rather, we must appreciate the efforts of the team, throughout the tournament and understand that despite not receiving the cup, they had reigned supreme for gargantuan part of the tournament, and that they too had trudged through a vertiginous distance to eventually reach to the final.
Other events like the G-20 Summit, under the Indian Presidency, too were major contributors to the Indian Success Story this year. As we culminate this year to enter into 2024, it is certain that the failures and hurdles of this year become the stepping stones for India’s success, in the next year and that while appreciating the immense mountains that India has conquered this year, we must also strive to learn even more and achieve all of that even in 2024.
Saikrit Gulati, Class- IX,
St. John’s High School, Chandigarh
