[Top: Reconstruction of Sri Lanka picks up after the tsunami destroyed much of this town.]

By Patrick Jonas

WE ARE not even nine years into the 21st century but we have seen enough disasters - both man-made and natural - to make us feel that the last century was so blissful.

A tsunami, deadly earthquakes, the 9/11 and Mumbai terror attacks, Sars, bird flu, the economic recession and now the threat of the H1N1 flu pandemic.

The birth of this century itself was welcomed with a sense of fear. Y2K was on everybody's lips. As the year 2000 approached, experts wondered whether computer systems would interpret 00 as 1900 and systems would break down.

Huge sums were spent to rectify this. One estimate has it that over US$300 billion was spent. It, however, proved beneficial to India. Indian tech companies were able to showcase their strengths to the outside world and from then on go from strength to strength.

The Y2K bug did not create havoc as many predicted but the world got a nasty shock when Al Qaeda terrorists struck in the United States on September 11, 2001. Overnight, travel to the US was not looked upon as a pleasant experience.

The attitude of US immigration authorities, not the friendliest at the best of times, bordered on the paranoid on occasions while dealing with visitors to that country.

The terror attacks changed the way people travelled by air. Check-in lines grew longer and, in some cases, one security check was not enough. Since then, restrictions on what could be carried by hand became agonisingly stricter.

What was spoken while boarding the plane or while on board had to be carefully worded. Even those sporting beards became suspects in the eyes of some.

As governments grappled with securing their nations from terror attacks, a deadly blast went off in Bali in 2002.

While world attention was on the build-up to the US war in Iraq in 2003, Sars crept into Singapore like a thief, in February, through travellers who had visited Hong Kong. The World Health Organisation declared Sars a pandemic the following month.

By the time the disease was brought under control in Singapore, the economy had taken a hit and recession followed. But more than the fear of losing jobs, it was the fear of death that stalked Singaporeans young and old during that period.

The following year, while the world was in the Christmas mood, a giant earthquake near Indonesia set off a deadly tsunami. Around 250,000 people in 11 countries were killed. The devastation was awesome and the worst in living memory.

Live pictures of the giant waves sweeping away people and buildings reminded us of the biblical story of the great flood. The survivors of the tsunami in some countries are still struggling to stitch together a decent existence.

Man's greed has also caused great harm during this period. Industrialised nations sacrificed environmental responsibility at the altar of economic progress. The last few years have seen nature strike back in the form of hurricanes and unseasonal heavy rains, causing floods and deaths.

The greed extended to the financial sectors too. Mismanagement and ponzi schemes have landed us in one of the worst recessions ever.

For India, the recession was a big blow as it came on the heels of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Meanwhile, the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq continue with the wars spawning a seemingly never-ending flow of suicide bombers. Osama bin Laden is still alive somewhere and militant attacks in Pakistan are growing by the day.

The world has enough worries at the moment - Pakistan's nuclear arsenal falling into terrorist hands, the state of the world economy and issues of global warming to name a few. A flu pandemic is the last thing we need.

This article was first published in tabla!