The balcony overlooks a busy road. Honks of all decibels and tunes are heard above the din of the factories in the distance.

Plato walks nervously up and down the long balcony as Socrates wears a forlorn look.

“Aren’t we supposed to celebrate?”, Plato looks up at Socrates and then looks down at the bevy of party girls carrying confetti for the party.

“Celebrate what?”, asks Socrates with his gaze fixed elsewhere.

“The fact that the new year is here.”

“Yeah”

“Then why aren’t we out there partying with all these people?”

“We are old. And philosophers.”

“Oh yes. We give others reasons not to party”, Plato mumbles with loaded sarcasm topped with anger

“Do you see the horizon?”, Socrates asks, ignoring Plato’s juvenile bursts.

“Horizon?? What the…No”.

“What is the horizon?”, Socrates goes on.

Self-jubilant, Plato thinks “Yes, the Greek has finally lost it. No more cryptic passages for the world”.

“The Horizon..er…a horizontal line at the end of the world”, he answers with a smirk.

“How can there be a line when the earth is a sphere?”

“Well yeah, what I meant is the place where the earth meets the sky and you see it as a line”, Plato drops his jubilant note and quickly understands the old man is still stable.

“Yes, and now you don’t see the horizon because of all these buildings”, says the old man.

“The party starts at 8 pm tonight. Its Happy Hours as well.”

“Now, the horizon is where it all starts or it all ends. And if we have covered this origin of things (or conclusion of things) by our creations, what are we celebrating for?”

“I don’t think I follow that”, says Plato and immediately realises his folly in saying so.

“When there is no reason to be or to die, why party?”, Socrates puts it in simpler terms.

Dropping any hopes of jostling on the dance floor tonight, Plato resigns to his fate and sits down.

Socrates, in the meanwhile, spots a fight on the road. Around five to six people chasing a guy and then beating him up as the traffic comes to a halt.

“Celebrate?”, Socrates asks looking at Plato.

Plato shrugs and then looks at the sky, upward from the horizon. Three colorful kites flutter in the wind and make the world strangely brighter.
The horizon remained covered, but beyond it lay a world of freedom and joy.

The party is on.

Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen.

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Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen.

2006 finally comes to an end. Not that it makes any difference in time.
But it just gives us a psychological edge to cling on to. To make merry (for a reason not very apparent) and to prepare ourselves for another set of 12 months that will influence our lives.

I do not intend to reflect on the year gone by. It was eventful, to be mild in my words.
In the universal sense, this revolution of earth carries little or no significance.
The Gregorian calendar helps us believe that the dirt and filth has been cleaned and wiped off from our existential state. Our canvas is, once again, sparkling white and ready to be painted.

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s wishing that your canvases are painted with wonderfully bright colors that bring joy and happiness for ever.

Happy New Year.