A spokesperson for Planet Earth

In a move suggesting that we may be getting closer to an encounter of the third kind, the United Nations has put across a new, futuristic agenda: the Martians are coming; get ready.

Job number one, that of appointing the Earth’s official spokesperson who can set agendas and hold a dialogue with his/her extraterrestrial counterpart, has been taken care of. In keeping with the theme, the person for the job is a woman named Mazlan Othman, a Malaysian astrophysicist — a decision perhaps prompted by research indicating that more firms hire women in times of crisis.

Given the set of assumptions that have to be made for possible ‘parleys’ or ‘friendly gestures’, the task at hand is enormous. That is, of course, assuming the alien life forms buy into the idea of bilateral talks and are not looking at domination. We are also assuming they will talk at all. The fact that Othman is staring at a task far trickier than what Obama inherited in America, of saving the planet, makes her the most powerful person on Earth (Check Time magazine’s list of influentials 2011).

Cynicism can literally cost us the world and we are better off putting our energies into creating technological capabilities, crafting possible scenarios, drawing up conflict resolution strategies, drafting geeks into the army cosmos, designing over-the-moon travel packages, and whatever else the imagination grants us.

It has to be a robust mix. It is after all damn serious or just a big joke.