'But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near, and yonder all before us lie deserts of vast eternity'.
— Andrew Marvell.

The world is older by one more year again from today. Everyone will have his memories of the event of the year that passed. Someone will feel sorry to miss something which he wants to fulfil in the year, some will have the joy and happiness to get something new in the year, but the reality is that we have crossed another year in our journey from cradle to grave.

In this journey of life we get something new, we lost something old but we always try to carry the fond memories of the past as our sole companion in this journey. This is what we called 'life'.

Those who are putting their steps on the threshold of life are always eager about the future. They always hope for the better, always aim at the moon. This is what a fresher or a beginner of life ought to be. Life is full of activity for them. They look brilliant like the dews of early morning.

To me personally, coming of another new year is a day of remembrance of the past. While the world is full of rejoice to welcome the coming year, I feel sad to say adieu to the old year that slips away before my eyes.

While there is still hope for doing the best in the remaining hours of my life, sometimes in the hours of depression I often begin to count the number of people at my funeral procession. Is it a negative approach to life? Or is it a thought that usually comes at the twilight years of life? I have not the answer at present.

When one approaches the second part of life, when one begins to see the light at the western horizon fading to indicate the passing of the day, remembrance of the past gets firmer hold on mind than hope.

The remembrance of the past is becoming a sweeter taste of life than hope and day dreaming for the future. The most precious possession at this stage is the handful of remembrance of the past which one guards with love.

When we journey into our past, we feel life's bidden mysteries unfolded with nostalgic remembrance. This nostalgia brings back our past - good or bad. We want to wipe away the bad memories and at the same time want to magnify the good ones and always hope to do good to the society in the future course of life.

This enables the society to bind together with the bond of love, that is whenever man gets matured he can see really the temporariness of life and begin to seek eternity beyond the rim of this sky. This idea taught man to love others.

But the problem is how to love others? Man always fail to understand the language of love from others. We should listen to others, we have to force ourselves to really listen for love. Man rarely listens to each other these days.

They often hear the words but they don't listen and at the same time they never try to understand the love that is in our hearts. Man takes only the words of misunderstandings and thinks only for rejection. This is the problem in our present society.

God has put man above the level of the fellow animals on this earth, because he has got the reason, he has got the sense. But when the reason and good sense in man loose its way, then, man the two-footed animal becomes more ferocious than those four footed animals that roam in the wild.

There is always animal instinct as well as divine quality in man. When the former gets the upper hand then man behaves like beasts and all the good and noble qualities in man pale in comparison to the bad qualities and beastly acts which ultimately draws our human society into the state of chaos where suffering hold out their hands to embrace us.

In different ages, our earth has often been visited by extraordinary souls embodied in the body of man taking the name of Jesus or Krishna or Allah. They preach us to love our fellow human beings.

They teach us to treat every human body as a temple and spirit within the body as God. They tell us to treat every individual as an aspect of divinity.

Our earth becomes a fertile ground for spreading good words like 'with malice towards none' and 'Ahimsa Satyamev Jayate' from the mouths of Lincoln and Gandhi.

Again, this earth also becomes a fertile ground for Hitlers, Idi-Amins and Bin Ladens. The world where we live in is a compact society where these contrasting characters do exist. Crime and criminal, lawlessness and law breakers are here in our midst to stay as long as human beings exist on this earth. Then the necessity here for a good society is to reduce and control the crimes.

Who can guarantee that crime on humanity will be wiped out when Saddam Hussein is hanged or when the threat of Bin Laden is cut. If so, then there would have been no crime on this earth from a very long time ago. But we cannot hope for it for the present and even we can't hope for it for all time to come.

A change in the attitude of the society, a total reformation of the society is needed so that we can stop the process that create a criminal.

For this, value education or moral education should be imparted to the younger generation to mould their minds in the right shape when they are young.

Let good sense and good action prevail among all of us. Let us make 2007 a good and different year. Insight wishes happy New Year to all its readers.