2011: A Year of Marriages

2011. It was what i thought in 2010. When it was going to come! I thought it was just yesterday when we ushered into 2011 with astronomically high hopes and exponentially powered dreams. Maybe I am dreaming -- day dreaming by the way. But time seems to go so fast too even notice before your eyes, when it feels like spending years to only pass a lonely full moon night remembering someone you lost in the past.

Today is 30th Jan 2011, very close to pass a month into the year. I feel like I have woken up from the middle of a delicious dream only to find myself I am late for work. Maybe you all might have gone through this experience, if you are sort of a lazy person like me. You need to do this and that. You hurry up things because you are already late for work and your boss will be waiting for you in office to have 'some nice words' with you. More late means 'more nice words'. It's unpleasant by the way, right?

For me, being a lazy man, maybe by birth, it happens most of the time. Sometimes, when this happens, it takes only 5 minutes or so from out of bed to taking bath to dressing up. Sometimes you forget brushing your teeth or you avoid doing so intentionally. It's like fast forwarding at 32x in a movie. It's the fastest thing you could in such instance. Everything becomes rolling on its own in fast forwarding pace. I wish I could do like this in all that I do.

I would call this year 2011 as the 'year of marriages'. Because most of my friends are going to be tying their heavily and long-awaited knots to their sweethearts in marriage. So in advance, I wish all of them a happy and joyous married life with some beautiful kids, who knows if some among them becomes Miss World or Mr. Universe or something sort of that in the future. But my friends are insisting on me a lot these days that I should get married this year, but surprisingly less pressure from my parents. It's understandable, there are some pressing issues on hand right now, by the way.

Being a bachelor is a boon in some way. You are absolutely independent. You can do whatever you like, good, bad or otherwise. But once it's gone, you will be like tying to a stationary pole. Being bachelorhood and married are two worlds apart. But anyway I need to get married sooner or later. Sooner the better, my married friends say so. That's how life's supposed to be.

Looking Back: The Year 2010 In Retrospect!

The old has gone, the new has come. 2010 is gone into history. The new guest 2011 has come to the fore. I have no idea of what it brings with for us, the world and humanity; God only knows. We'll have to see when it unveils those surprises in its own time.

By the way, i am writing on my blog after a long gap, maybe around three months on a stretch, i guess. My apologies in advance. I am a person, by habit, who writes and writes. But sometimes i had to be away from my blog for some personal reasons.

For me, 2010 was a year of many happenings, from highs to lows, from success to failure or vice versa. But nothing significance did happen. For the first time, i tried a different thing in 2010. I started internet marketing because i wanted to give it a try. I created many sites, did all campaigns online, used Google Adwords, Bing, Yahoo! I invested in dollars. But at the end of the day, in my P&L account, losses outweighed the profits. So only recently I pushed the PAUSE button in my newfound endeavor. That was my first online venture. But it burned my finger unfortunately the first time. But I am not giving up. Failures do come and they are the stepping stones to success. That was the business front.

As you all know, change is constant in life. In fact, 2010 was a year of changes. i changed the company after working almost 6 years. It was a hard decision but it became clear it had to happen. I had to 'relinquish' the comfort of being the most senior person in the team. We all want comfort and benefits in life. Not only did i change the company, i also changed my place of stay. If you had experienced it before, change of place of stay in a city like mumbai is uncomfortable -- always, because it takes time to adapt to the new place.

For me, love is one thing i cannot live without. Love is an amazing thing. It makes you high even when you are in the low. It makes you feel happy even when you are sad. No wonder the world goes round and round with this one thing - love. But for me, 2010 was a year of heart-break. But hope is one thing that propels you forward in life when there is no love. Hope is a good thing.

But when i look back as to what happened in 2010 in the whole world, it's the same shame world. First half was less of it, but second half was full of it. It's just enough to only look at India, the largest democracy in the world. Commonwealth Games 2010 comes to mind to the fore first.

The year 2010 started with high hopes in anticipation of the CWG. Even before it began, newspapers went overboard flashing on the front pages about the rampant corruption involving the Games officials -- Kalmadi and associates. And eventually, it was the beginning of the unfolding drama of rampant corruption and various scams in the Indian system. Adarsh land scam, 2G scams, all kinds of scams involving politicians and bureaucrats for which investigations are still ongoing. And the results we all know beforehand, no prizes for guess. Even the premiere agency in the country or even in the world like CBI is beating around the bush. They are crippled these days. Don't blame them but the system. But the saddest thing is that the India image was mired severely by these scams in the recent past. And that's India. And the year 2010 filled with corruption and scams. But WHO CARES?

And what happened in my home state, Manipur, the Northeastern state, so called the Land of Jewels where the jewels are nowhere to be found. Again, the same shame -- or even worse than the previous year. WHO CARES after all?

It's getting worse day after day, sad to say so. Band, blockades, violence, killing civilians for money etc. 'Commandos' are self appointed or 'anointed' kings there. There's no one born yet in Manipur to rein them once for all.

Again, being a multi-ethnic state of over 30 different ethnic tribes, now nagas in the hills of Manipur are demanding for a separate administration -- as equal as demanding a separate state though; kukis are, on the other hand, demanding for a Kukiland. In the middle, SPF government is playing hide and seek game. They can't do anything worthwhile even into the future. Riches are getting richer and richer, poors are getting poorer and poorer. Nothing new anywhere in the world but in a state like Manipur, it's different.

In Manipur, human rights as equal as extinct - non-existent, guns rule the whole of it. People are afraid to go out of their homes after the dark. Security forces, instead of instilling security in the minds of people, instills terror among the people. Militants are rampant these days in extortion and kidnapping, especially government officials.

In fact, Manipuris are living between the devil and dead sea. Sore state of the State. The SPF government is just the mere spectator, can do nothing to resolve these longstanding problems of the common man. Very sorry to say this, animals are better taken care of in zoo than the human beings walking on the streets of Manipur. Needless to say it again, if somebody dies in Manipur, he or she would have prayed to God, that if they were to be born in Manipur again, they be born as animals in the zoo. Abysmal state of the human rights in the land of jewels!

Well it's impossible to write all of what happened in 2010. Not to mention, though, not all clouds were dark, there were silver linings too. Obama's India visit was a silver lining on the business front. Sensex crossing 20K and many others. But the fact of the matter is dark spots overshadowed the little bright spots in 2010 overall.

Let me come to a close. For our new guest 2011, let's hope for the best and plan for the unexpected. Let me use a quote from the classic Shawshank Redemption, 'Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.' Even if when all seems gone wrong, let it not die -- at all. HOPE. Keep it close to your chest -- HEART -- all the time.

And not the least, I wish you all a good health, peace of mind and of heart, fulfillment and success, happy and prosperity in this coming NEW YEAR 2011.

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My New Year Resolution for 2011: LIVE MORE IN LIFE ['it's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your years that count'], THINK MORE ['imagination is more important than knowledge'], DREAM MORE ['I am a big, huge dreamer'].

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Cheers!

Take care all!