Break in Service and Other Things

It's official that I've been out of commission for a while now, didn't have much enthu to write about stuff nor had the motivation to read all my fellow bloggers posts, though, I've occasionally glimpsed through some of them. I guess blogger lethargy sweeps in once in a while and am hopefully attempting to break the spell and start writing again.

A lot has happened in the past few days and we aren't even done with the first half of December yet and I am already wishing for this year to end.

The Mumbai attacks have indeed caused immeasurable losses, pain and more than any other emotion, anger to a lot of Indians world wide. While, almost every blogger has expressed their hurt and concern over the brutality, I have no additional thoughts to chip in. A Caucasian colleague of mine who read every Indian and Pakistani paper there was to read online on the attacks, sent me this one liner titled humor out of tragedy- "Forgiving the Terrorists is GOD's responsibility. But fixing their appointment with God is entirely OUR responsibility."

A year that is steadily seeing the US unemployment rise at a frenzy that only seems to make layoffs the norm in several work places. Come every Thursday and Friday, irrespective of whether the company's earnings report comes out or not, there appears to be announcements of job cuts. With this rapid cut in our workforce, even top economic analysts are unable to predict when the job market will hit the bottom. And, the bad news doesn't stop with this intensifying recession that is still seen going well into the first half of 2009 and when a recovery comes, if it does, will it bring more jobs or sustain an already suffering middle class. Will Obama's stimulus package bring in some sort of relief? Will the US auto industry ever be able to rise from its worst ever? Will national security and terrorism continue to be a significant factor on the new president elect's agenda? Lastly, will most employers be able to find some budget saving relief by mandating forced shutdown for atleast 2 weeks for their staff?

Well, with so much clout hanging over our heads, I sure don't see us heading into a cheerful holiday season. This year's Xmas and New Year are going to be low key gatherings for many families where gifts are probably not going to be exchanged.

Not to end on a negative tone, but, atleast let's try and think of the good things and blessings that life has bestowed upon each and every one of us and use that as a tonic to get us through some tough times.