There is something comforting about living under a familiar sky. About knowing the name of the street you live on. The human mind abhors the unknown. And so it sees pictures in the clouds, constellations in the stars and hears music in the wind.

Order. It is, Alexander Pope said, heaven's first law. We seek order endlessly -- and unconsciously. Where it is not obvious, we try to create it, carving a path where there is but randomness. Unfortunately for India, it was a year of fading paths, overrun by a chaotic political and economic wilderness. It wasn't supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a year when India renewed its awakening to light and freedom. Instead, in the golden jubilee of its Independence, India was put on hold. The ambitions of one ageing Congressman -- and the shenanigans of fractious, selfish politicians -- were enough to dim the lights of celebration.

Actually, from the outside, it looked like India was moving along. There was a cornucopia of cars for the buyer. The cellular phone spread to the hinterland. On the ramps, droves of young women chased dreams of glory. The Big Mac quietly eased onto the menus of the middle class.

But out in the spanking new car factories, unsold automobiles piled up. In the temples of modern India, the giant furnaces slowed production of everything from steel to cement. India Inc faltered badly, plunging into chasms of disorder in an economy littered with the unfinished bridges of economic reform. If you wanted to take hope and unwind with our national obsession, cricket, it wasn't a good idea: a year of defeats and scandal ended with an inexplicable axing of half the team.

Yes, it was a year of chaos. Yet, take hope, because if you looked closely enough, you could, in this darkness, glimpse a million bright ambassadors of morning come streaming in on sunlit wings. They shone through in the determination of the unsung heroes who saved hundreds during an unprecedented spate of road and fire accidents. They shone through in a handful of bureaucrats who braved threats and harassment to send the mighty packing. They shone through in the boundless spirit of the Abdul Kalams and the Leander Paes'. These are the ties that bind, the spirit which reassures us that hope lives within us always, and order is just beyond the next mountainside.

There is something comforting about living under a familiar sky. Especially when you see the sun.

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