2013: Hear Me Roar

Katy Perry got it right. In the fall of 2013, the Chinese year of the Snake, if you invest your faith in such things, the American pop-star’s break-up anthem Roar opened to maniacal radio play worldwide. Little did she know, or maybe she did, her anthemic song had in it’s four-minute duration, smugly compressed the war cry of the world. 2013 was the year of the warrior.

The passion of the Arab spring from 2012 has permeated everywhere. The crash of the US economy and the EU, the war against Syria, Iran’s nuclear stance being alight - in India, the democracy took up arms. This was the year of the “Mahabharata,” even as it made it’s comeback in a glistening avatar on prime time television, the power holders in the national capital played war games on their own “Kurukshetra” grounds.

As the eve of perhaps the nation’s most important election year since it’s independence in 2014, 2013 gave enough ammunition to warring parties at the centre - the dynastic Congress and the Hindutava BJP - to play dirty, throw punches at one another, incriminate in scams and even create their own war-cries (you should seriously lend an ear to the chanting NaMo NaMo if you haven’t already). 2012′s biggest additions to our vocabulary, (scam)gate found it’s every reaching usage this year. The erstwhile porngate of 2012 was the coalgate and snoopgate of 2013. The UPA government was also heavily billed over not just it’s inflammatory economic decisions (à la ₹ fall), but also over the Ordinance, Food Bill and of course the creation of Telangana.

The biggest winners this year were women, for who’s protection laws were changed and one of India’s illustrious journalists Tarun Tejpal ended up “recusing” himself. Sadly the biggest losers were the LGBT community, who once again, were called criminals by the Supreme Court overturning Delhi HC’s landmark 2009 judgement to decriminalize the section 377 to the Indian Penal Code that deemed “unnatural sex” between members of the same sex and oral sex, both punishable by law.

If 2012 was the year of the apocalypse as the Mayan’s apparently predicted it, 2013 was the consequential battlefield where surviving cretins indulged in guerrilla warfare and stomped on each other’s toes. Why stop there? Even our entertainment was angry. Fashion, music, film, television - were blaring with the ideologies of a changing world. But more on all that later.

Whatever happens in 2014, remember to hold each other’s hands and welcome the surge of a new civilization. We might just perish or survive with mutated battle scars by the end of it. Oh and on the upside, we might just also land on Mars.

In the next few days, before we bid 2013 adieu, we will help you relive the highs and lows of the surreal year that was. Keep watching this space for our End Of The Year Lists #EOTY. Lend us your memories and tell us if we missed anything.

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