In the Gregorian calendar, October is usually a dead month. Seasons come to an end. Even love affairs seem to end with the October heat, October cold. A lot of inactivity sets in. Before long October is hushed and swept under the carpet like it never happened. November is welcomed as it ushers in change, and does symbolize new beginnings.
This year round October was one frenzied month, one that did not allow me to write and post something new, not because I had nothing to write but because there was much of it. Like everybody else, I was following the Obama campaign like my own pulse, and watching the dreams of a billion people worldwide that he carried in the nook of his eye, in the light of his smile. I wasn’t there when evolution happened. I only learnt about it in school. This time I would watch the second evolution for that is what Obama represented. Not American politics, not individual dreams, but global evolution from one state of not being to a state of fully becoming. Miracles defined. Reality touched with charm and beauty.
The debate now is how this ‘messianic figure’ will change the world. Many are saying he has already changed the world. He has changed long held perceptions, preconceptions, and misconceptions by one act of standing and winning. That is all he needed to do. An entire generation can now pitch their hope on that single act of audacity and belief. They can wake up, eat and drink Obama and go to bed satisfied. In brief, Obama has done it. Created a second evolution. Years later when we are talking to our children and grand children, when we are reading books and chronicling stories of nations, a common phrase will be; ‘In the time of Obama’s evolution, this and that happened…’
What’s very important to me, I will remember that just before Obama, October took on a significant shape. It was the decisive month to die, to bury the old and hatch the new, to put an end to nightmares. Every gesture, word and action gravitated towards making a new history, with a loud yes to change, hope and progress. It was the month when night turned to day, when the universe conspired to choose one bridge. When the stars that shine round the moon came down to the people and beamed in witness: ‘We gave you Gandhi. We gave you Martin Luther. We gave you Mandela. Now you have Obama, October dawn and November rise.’
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