This year, Christmas should probably come in with a Game of Thrones background score given the geopolitical realities of our time. In 2023, Santa has a very good chance of being shot down over the skies of Ukraine or Gaza — like the South Park episode where Santa is shot down over Iraq in true Black Hawk Down-style as the American commander barks: “We have a red sleigh down! We have a red sleigh down!”.
The Houthis are dropping bombs on Western tankers as if they had hung out stockings over their ships for this very purpose. Everybody is wondering which geopolitical villain will come down the chimney of chaos in 2024 as our next black swan event. But enough about why you may consider accumulating Japanese yen with the same gusto that you pretend to accumulate anime on Instagram. (Somewhere a young Naruto screams “Baga Baga” at pretend Indian anime dancefluencers.)
This year, Covid is again accompanying our Christmas carols, so you may want to put on a mask before you get together in closed room with a lot of people and sing Joy to the World at the top of your pollution-filled lungs. The ruling party would have felt that Christmas has come early this year with the Assembly election results, and the markets have also joined them in exclaiming, “Ho! Ho! Ho!” But spiking oil prices may suddenly throw oil on the inflationary fires. And force you to downgrade from Starbucks to Kulhad Chaiwallah. Now whether INDIA chooses Starbucks or Bharat chooses Chai next year is a question that is up in the air like the drones in the sky and the satellites in space all pointing at each other like a global measuring contest without nuclear weapons… so far.
On a more cheerful note (given that it’s Christmas), the weather is finally clearing up giving Kolkata the brief Christmas miracle of a winter. As a child I remember the school Christmas party being the one occasion where everyone looked ready for Instagram — even in all-boys schools. Today, Mr Beast has taken over the role of Santa Claus dishing out random money to random people earned from showing random content … to the same random people. Is this what they call the circular economy?
Children, of course, have been going crazy screaming “Exam khatam ho gayi” on Instagram as an Animal runs free on the screens. Global hedge funds will be aggressively selling the “long-term potential of the Indian markets even at these sky-high levels”, so they can quietly make their exits before New Year’s. Or before a new war.
This is the year of deglobalisation in a reversal of the globalisation story that was sold to us all these years. And you wonder if the dollar wall that held the post-war world together is falling apart BRIC by BRIC. But I am pretty certain even when Christmas was celebrated in the concentration camps and in the World War II trenches, it was still celebrated with the same spirit of bringing in a Happy New year no matter what the circumstances. So, stop worrying about what is happening around the world and lap up the Christmas ASMR advertising to buy things that you don’t need. Wishing you a Merry X-mas with a hope that the next solar flare to hit Earth is not X-Class.
The author is a Marwari investment banker turned corporate comedian. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the website.