Bye Bye 2010 and Welcome 2011

Its another 365 days gone by , as we put full stop to 2010 and welcome another 365 days.

Has the 365 days that has gone by been any different from the previous? Yes, am sure it was.

2010 has been a very mixed year for me . A year which has had its own share of success and failures. The below is probably a good summary.

To start with i think i became more disciplined , for the first time ever i tracked my personal goals. I had become more tech savvy in the whole process not by leaps and bounds but by a reasonable margin.

There were lot of lessons learnt on the way and also found out the real people who actually shape my life. Love has still eluded me this year , so its still the same with me as am yet to find my better half.

The realization of life moving ahead of me hit my mind hard , so i slowed down to enjoy the beauty of life , realizing that just working and earning money isn't important, there are other things in life that need to be given time for.

During the previous years, Whenever hard times came by , i asked the almighty why me? For a change i learnt that when i succeed i should also ask him ' why me' as i found out that how fortunate i am as compared to the millions of people who suffer every day.

This year has also been exemplified by the art of giving , the understanding of the fact that the more you give , the more happy you are , is this pursuit of happiness?may be you could call it that way.

The excitement of the sporting season cannot be undermined, as it showed sports can bring nations and culture closer than one can ever imagine and i watched a F1 grand prix live at the Circuit , which still makes me smile. That has been a dream come true.

Had a reasonable travelful year as there were places on this earth which i had visited for the first ever time. Had unique opportunity to try out various cuisine's .

The first half of the year and the second half of the year had been diametrically opposite to me, i enjoyed and succeeded in the first half of the year and i struggled and almost failed in the second half, however the second half thought me very valuable lessons in life.

As the world diversifies itself and new technologies are found , its increasingly hard to slow down and the pace of life is only going to get ever faster , am afraid that in this pace we might loose the underlying values of human life.

In the world of movies which are so surreal and fictitious , sometimes there are those rare gems which waves magic and gets the human emotions to its edge , i did enjoy those rare movies this year.

There is a saying ' Katrathu Kai Allavu , Kallathathu Ulag Allavu' , this translates to ' What you have learnt is just a handful and what you need to learn is a world out there' , i understood its importance this year as i learnt to iron my clothes, learn to fit an electric bulb or for that matter learnt to make the batter for pancakes, this year has been all about learning.

In one of the major south Indian movie, a statement is made to this hero ' Sir, you are Great' . The Hero laughs and retaliates back to the common man ' You fool, the man who bought me to his world ' the almighty' is great'. This statement is funny and the meaning is so obvious but to understand the meaning a quick walk across a crowded city would be more than enough to affirm the statement, as i walk past so many people, places each and everyday i enjoy the charisma of the world and the genius behind the man who created it.

As i conclude 2010 and welcome 2011 , am sure its going to be another 365 different days. I step forward with confidence because i have had a great journey in 2010 in which i have learnt invaluable lessons which are going to shape the next 365 days.

As you read this , you are going to think , hey that's similar to my experience , well after all am one among you, the common man.

I wish all of you a very happy new year. See you 2010, welcome 2011.

Everything Comes to a Standstill

You don't need to be too proud if you have found out what am intending to write.

Yes , its Christmas and leading up to end of year, everything has slowed down. I am in Poole (UK) over Christmas period and life has ground to a halt.

Temperature has plummeted to -7 degrees which doesn't help either. I literally mean life has become a standstill. All shops are closed and if you need essential food items either you should have stocked it or wait until shops open on 27th .

To my surprise people here take Christmas day very seriously , its all about family , many people travel to their mothers and dads place or get -together in their friends place. Everything slowed down from last week.

Work in office was just crawling , there was no hustle and bustle . There was no sense of any urgency, i think its the only time of the year procrastination isn't a sin and many of the office disciplines probably doesn't apply.

I am pleasantly surprised with this break and enjoying the four long days of holiday after what has been a grueling year.

Life will come back to normal from Wednesday next week until then , to all you folks enjoy the Christmas break.

Very Nice and a Mice weekend

Didn't have any reasonable topic to blog on so i thought i would blog about the weekend.

It was a very nice and a mice weekend , let me first say the nice part and then the mice part.

This weekend i had a rendezvous between me and one of my very good friend Rama. He works for a company here and agreed to come over for this weekend.

As always when two old time friends meet, there is an element of excitement in the air. Ours was no different and the laughs started right from the start. Rama was due to come on Friday night , he had messaged me stating that he would leave his place at 7:40 and would reach my place by 10:00, i mis-read the 7:40 as 17:40. Due to this misunderstanding; i reached home early from office to prepare dinner , only to find out that Rama was due to start at 7:40 and not 17:40 .

Anyway , no harm done. He reached a junction and called me. I picked the call and said to him that he give me a call when he reaches a place known to both of us.

Rama misunderstood this and got down at the place where i asked him to call me , hence i had to wait in the freezing cold near my train station. Eventually he made it and we had a great laugh about the mis-understading in communication.

The night went by with usual banter between two friends and catching up with things in our lives.

On Saturday , Rama, another neighbour of mine who was mutual friend of us and myself went shopping .Before that we payed our respects to Lord Krishna at an ISKCON temple, once we made our offerings we came down for a solid lunch, although it was touch expensive but was worth it and we didn't mind it.

We just walked throughout the day shopping and by five in the evening we were exhausted . We decided to head back home. Back home , we relaxed and had good dinner watching a hillarious movie. It made for a great Saturday. Sunday was just relaxing .

As the day came to a close , myself and Rama had a good dinner at Pizza hut . As i bid adieu for him at the bus station , reality hit me that next week was round the corner and its back to work from tomorrow.

It was a great weekend.

Coming to the mice story , somehow in this cold , mice has got into my apartment. Neither do they know how to get out of my apartment , nor do i know how to get rid of them. Iam keeping my fingers crossed that they don't do damage any cable lines in the apartment. Hoping to get someone from the concierge or the estate agents to fix this issue tomorrow.

All in all , has been a nice and a mice weekend for me.

Holidays

Everyone looks forward to it and am no exception.

I booked my holidays early in september to go back to Chennai. All flights booked, was so eager to be back home and spend quality time at home.

I was so looking forward to it that the joy of looking forward to it just consumed my days leading up to the holidays.

The D day did come, when i reached home the joy for my parents was immense in seeing me after close to six months.

I had thought well this would be one of those trips where i stay back home, relax and eat sumptuous home made food .

How wrong i was ! I had ten days in hand and a zillion odd people to meet and truck loads of activities to complete before i was back.

The immense pressure to make sure that i meet everyone who i needed to was driving me crazy.

To be honest i already knew i had no chance to meet everyone.

Finally my holidays was over even before i could really enjoy it.

Having said that , i did learn something important. We are very close knit society , when i say 'we' i mean Indian's.

Why do i say it. I was stuck by the number of people calling me and speaking to me and asking me how i was doing.

Its amazing to see , even how old colleagues also call you and wish you luck and ask about how you were doing. I was stuck on how many people invited me for lunch and dinner. Fantastic.

Now iam back and sitting in my apartment and writing this blog , i truly miss my home and people.

Although it was a frenzied trip but there was beauty in that chaos and warmth in all the hurry.

To round it up, in all this pace of my holidays i completely forgot what had happened in office , nobody contacted me and my blackberry wasn't working .What more could i have asked for .

I didn't relax but i did enjoy all the company. I must admit, i am so overwhelmed to see so many well wishers. Some times staying away shows oneself the true worth of people around.

Take care.

Note:- Sorry for not blogging for close to a month, now you know the reason.