No I am not going to bemoan 2020. Or celebrate its end.

I am not going to shower you with flowery wishes for 2021.

Nor am I going to encourage you with pithy proverbs, wise advice or motivational mouthfuls.

2020 is over (at least in the next few hours) 2021 will pretty much slip in with one turn of the-page-a-day-desk calendar(remember those?), unobtrusively, continuing in the same vein as most of 2020.

Words like gratitude, compassion and peace have been bandied around this year, sprayed almost as liberally as sanitizers. We’ve said RIP as many times as we’ve washed our hands with soap. Sometimes for 20 seconds, every 20 seconds. And we’ve worn masks that hid our inner grief, anxiety and our inability to say, “I don’t know”.

So what did 2020 bring you? What did it give me?

If there’s one thing that 2020 has taught me, it is I DON’T KNOW. It’s humility. It’s being able to look at myself and say, I am not sure where this is going, where I am going, how it is going and when it is going to stop going. I am not quite sure when exactly this began. And I don’t even know when it is going to end.

It’s like being in the grips of a very high fever where, in the deliriousness and the semi-consciousness, in the throes of a severe rigour, the spasms of pain and the throbbing of temples, you know move in and out of consciousness, but lose track of time, of day or night or a sense of place. And you don’t know how, and for how long you’ve been there… but there you are. Till it is all over. All gone. In one cold sweat. And you open your eyes weakly, awash with relief. It’s you. But it’s not you.

And I think, and humbly hope, that in that very way, for the world at large, this ague will break, and the ensuing cold sweat will leave us rid of this darkness. And a new day will come. Till then… like (a bit of what) the Yoga Sutras have taught me, Ishvara Pranidhana.

And with this thought, I step into the new waters of 2021.

Note: To know more about Ishvara Pranidhana, click here.