There is so much that we do because some marketing guru manages to sell the idea to us !! If we stop to think .. every minute, every hour, every day is the start of a new year 🙂 so really celebrating just on the 31st of Dec seems irrational.
The year that started a year back from today, started with news of baby “Falak” who was battered and got admitted to AIIMS with a fractured skull and then three months later as we celebrated Sachin reaching his 100th 100 – we also cried on the death of India’s baby. Many debates happened on TV channels about how we should never allow something like this to happen, but guess what … we close the year with tears in our eyes for the “braveheart” “nirbhaya” daughter of India “Damini” ! This year too, like all other years, losses equalled gains.
Where Lance Armstrong won his fight against cancer he lost the fight against doping charges and his fans are still deciding whether to feel shamed or remain indignant – such is the confidence on the media reports. Our very own star cricketer Yuvi fought back cancer and is back for good.
Aamir said “Satyamev Jayate” and the great congress party managed to finally split the fledgling Anna Hazare movement with Arvind Kejriwal launching the “Aam Aadmi” party. How I wish someone like Narasimha Rao comes back from the dead to teach Arvind some political maneuvering … you see the antidote for snake bite is snake venom 🙂 catch my point?? Kudos to Arvind for rattling our first family though !!
The strings of the sitar fell silent as the fingers that played them were gone … RIP Panditji. Just as the amazing voice of Whitney Houston was drowned in drugs and fell silent, across the seas, Mehdi Hassan breathed his last. We lost the Amul man – a true visionary and a real life super star and we lost the first celluloid superstar Rajesh Khanna and as always we had misplaced priorities, with the true super star Verghese Kurien getting a few minutes coverage while the celluloid superstar suddenly was hailed as a saint.
A much delayed justice was finally delivered by hanging Kasab and then we go and play cricket with Pakistan. The man who would have found this untenable and said as much left us a few days before Kasab !! RIP Balasaheb – I didn’t agree with your ideology but I respected you for your fearlessness in taking on the central command.
The fine satire of Jaspal Bhatti also fell silent and the amazing Dara Singh, a truly great sportsman also left us.
As the corporate world rallied behind Rajat Gupta to not let him fall from grace, an entire nation applauded diminutive Mary Kom and Saina Nehwal as they kept our flag flying high at the Olympics.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s grace and poise was matched by Mamata’s graceless theatrics 🙁 The man who is not allowed into the US won for the third time and with a massive voter turnout while the man who refused him entry to the US also got re-elected !! Strange is the world of politics.
Retirement that left a void – Rahul Dravid … need I say more?
Personally – I started the year not knowing if I will accepted at ISB for my exec MBA program and enjoying amazing Delhi chill and I start the next year with four terms done at ISB and enjoying the pleasant weather in Bangalore !! Our lifelong dream of setting up an NGO was realized as we setup “Shikshadaan” and have managed to sponsor five people so far. I started to blog and wonder why I waited so long to start. We managed to meet Newton Kondaveti and attend his class. The whole year has also been about seeing celebrities .. Khushboo, Jackie Shroff, Dhoni and team, Farhan Akhtar, Mohinder Amarnath, Kapil Sibal, Jamling Norgay….
I finally got my Degree certificate courtesy Nisha, Subbu got a national award, and my dearest friend came over from the UK to celebrate my birthday 🙂 and I got back in touch with my most favorite teacher, Vidyasagar Sir. My dear friend Rama fought back cancer and another dear friend’s child is fighting it … and my mother fought her fears to travel alone (with an not well known person for company) from Hyderabad to Delhi by train.
New friends, some old friends met again in this life, a year with a lot of travel but no holiday, a year of huge learning .. especially learning that I am rational, a year that brought us to Appa’s favorite city … leaving our home in Gurgaon exactly ten years to the date that we entered it, yet another capsule of time that is perfectly balanced – loss and gain, happiness and sadness, love and hate, learning and unlearning, friends and foes – Nash equilibrium is how our lives and years are !!
Everyday we wake up to another equilibrium year ..