PERHAPS, THE best way to describe year 2008 would be by using the exclamation, ‘Oops!’ Oops, more terror attacks happened. Oops, bankable banks became bankrupt. Oops, India won an Olympic gold. Surprises abounded in 2008, most not so pleasant and avoidable if we had been more vigilant. But then, the best decisions are always taken on hindsight.

 

Let us now look at the some of the fashion forecast for 2009.

 

Bulletproof/heatproof vests: After the fashion frat and the celebrity world finally felt the pinch of the terror attacks in India late in 2008, bulletproof vests will become popular. Moving away from the drab colors of grey and blue, they will soon be available in brighter colors and floral prints. Prices definitely will be high. For those wanting cheaper stuff, they can select from those flawed bulletproof vests which are provided to our defense and anti-terrorist squads. Needless to say, these vests will also be available for kids to protect them from gun totting bullies in school.

 

Skunks: As 2008 showed us that there is no such thing as thinking, honest, hard working politician, we might as well replace them with animals and save ourselves some whole lot of headache. The animal of the season would be a skunk for quite the obvious reason. Other animals to invade our parliament could be the bloodthirsty bat, the dim-witted dog, bestial gorilla, the lazy sloth, the filthy pig, and middle-class penguins.

 

Food fetish: Money. If things will proceed pretty much the same way as they did in 2008, we will finally be able to prove the Cree prophecy wrong (“…when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money”). Since there will be utter food shortage due to pollution, corruption and perhaps a cute little war thrown in, we will be forced to eat those wads of money we were ready to kill each other and ourselves for.

 

Recycle factory: Don’t mistake it for the ‘Go green we-care-for-environment’ craze. We are talking about the movies. Bollywood takes ‘inspiration’ from Hollywood, which takes inspiration from China and Japan and where-not, which anyway now apes the west. This continous recycling of ‘original ideas and inspirations’ will find legitimacy in the factory, which will streamline the process a bit and make this rather awkward process a well-oiled mechanism.

 

Conversion to Holy Cricket: Religious strife and riots over conversions will continue quite unfortunately, but other underground phenomena will also gain momentum. As was revealed in 2008 how utterly neglected other sports are, 2009 will see an effort to convert all sportsmen to Cricketism. The conversion to this cult will give them tax benefits, actual attention, useless money, hype and a little playing as well.

 

Obama-ely Yours: Last year was a period of Obama glorification. This year it might just continue. It will be fashionable to include Obama in every conversation, the F word becoming passé. “That’s so Obama-ely hot!” Going off on a tangent, how about chocolate chip cookies named Obama? Apart from their high popularity, the common point is that they both are brown…

 

iSomethings: As iPhone frenzy added to the already prevalent enthusiasm for iPod and iTouch, this year the trend would continue. Everthing will have ‘i’ affixed to it. iMilk, iSlap, iHouse, iMarks. Even babies would be names iTom, iRam and the likes. Of course, nothing will be actually usefully except for the ‘aesthetic appeal’.

 

Social outcasts, smokers and drinkers: Calvin’s club G.R.O.S.S undergoes a little change. Now it will be the club of Get Rid of Slimy Smokers. Started of course by Ramadoss, this club will curtail the rights of anyone who exercises the freedom to have the choice of smoking and drinking and dying the way he/she chooses to. No, the only way one can die in 2009 will be by industrial smoke, bomb blasts and brain damage by trying to find logic in what Simi Garewal says.