So it’s a new year!

Coming out of the Driving License Office after getting my Learner’s Driving License, I saw a News headline: “New Zealand celebrates the New Year” I checked the time, the clock had just struck 4:00 PM, today is 31st December 2012. Some hours later, the breaking news on TV was: “The last sunset of 2012 has occurred in Pakistan” and the sun setting over the Karachi beach was shown on the screen.

A few minutes before the strike of midnight. Messages start pouring in, wishing a happy, prosperous new year, with blessings. I take some time out and make up a message, wishing those near and dear to me.

8 hours later, at the strike of midnight (Pakistan Standard Time) the silence of the night is ripped apart by rattling gunfire; people celebrate the beginning of a new year. I make up a post in my personal diary titled: “Resolution #1 of 2013”. The diary logs date and time: It is 12:01 AM, 1st January 2013. A little while later I started checking my Facebook news feeds; people were wishing each other at the beginning of the new year. I had copied the message I had written as my social networking status’ message, Facebook included; Abbas Asad had copied that message and posted it as his own.

I have had a bath an hour ago, now it pops up in my mind that the last time I took a bath, that was so last year! Just as this thought popped in my head, I came across a friend’s status that said something like this:

I ordered a pizza at 5 minutes to midnight, and when it arrived I told the delivery person, “I ordered it so last year! Now do you expect a tip or something on it?”

So how could this be, the thought bothered me, that something that happened 5 minutes earlier was “so last year”?

The answer: the date changes at midnight, and a second after 11:59:59 PM on 31st December, the year changes, when the Gregorian calendar restarts its cycle; much like the Islamic calendar starts a second cycle after the last day of the last cycle and same is the case with the now famous Mayan calendar (due to the failed prediction of the end of world in 2012), the 14th b’ak’tun stated after then end of the 13th (the b’ak’tun is a roughly 5,125 years of the Gregorian calendar!)

Anyways,

May this year be a prosperous and joyous, taking you to heights never before achieved!
Wishing you and your family a very happy new year!
With lots of love!
-Ahmer Jamil Khan