Celebrating the New Years eve!

Why is it so important to celebrate the new years eve…Why is it such a big deal. I’ve been hearing these things all of last week.

It is very important to celebrate the new years eve. It is a big deal. You should make it a big deal. Celebrating the New years is not overrated at all.

The evening before the new year strikes marks a year full of glory, success, achievements accompanied with hard work, pain, joy, frustration, love, agony, troubles. But hey look… you survived! And you’re happy no matter what you think. It could have been way worse.

Its time to retrospect on all your losses and gains, on all your achievements and failures. Its time to celebrate the family and friends in your life that make your life so wonderful. Yes you can do that anytime of the year, but you don’t. So let the new year be an opportunity to thank, forgive, move on, declutter and celebrate everything that make you who you are today. Let it be another mark of another successful year where you grow and learn, forgive and forget because it is only a journey of these experiences after all. It is your story to tell.

The new years eve to me symbolizes my independence, my successes and failures, my losses and my gains, my love and empathy, my friends and family. It gives me a reason to live and to love more. It marks yet another chance I get to all fix all my mistakes.

So pat yourself on the back and go and celebrate the year that is passing by whichever way you like and get ready for another roller coaster. Make it meaningful, make it a celebration!

The Envelope of 2012, Open Please…

IT WAS an extraordinarily good year… for odd, inexplicable, idiotic behavior… yet one that turned out just fine in the end. And I am not just talking about the elections.

            Millions of women in countries the world over fell in love with a novel in which a marriage went terribly wrong. Apple decided to omit google maps from its Operating system. The novel in which the marriage went terribly wrong became the best selling paper back in history.

            Judgement day finally arrived for the beloved man who killed hundreds in a bomb blast. After contemplation over years, the Indian government finally thought of it to be a fair deal for death to one in return of death that came to a ton. Judgement day finally also arrived for Twinkies in the United States. Now you have to go to Canada to get them.

            And Book Wire and Publishers Weekly, both venerable institutions which usually don’t go for this sort of thing, named the author of the novel in which a marriage went terribly wrong the Publishing Person of the year. It was that kind of year.

            GoDaddy showed early support for the online piracy act and surprised everyone. As a result hundreds of sites joined boycott and in protest moved away from GoDaddy.

            Idiocy as always was on full display in professional sports. Jeremy Lin played with such verve and passion that he created a global phenomenon called “Linsanity”. Then they traded him to Houston. Oh and Whitney Houston died this year too. What coincidence.

            Idiocy was especially rampant in politics. The American Dream became the Americian Dream, hence Obama got re elected.

            The 20^th employee of google became the 1^st pregnant fortune 500 CEO, while inspiring the rest of us on how to take up motherhood for 2 kids at the same time. And Twitter suspended journalist for tweeting the Olympic presidents email address. So much for social networking.

            Queen Elizabeth 2, or someone resembling her, parachuted out of a helicopter to help launch the London Olympics. The Queen’s reward for this was having to listen to “Hope I die before I get old”. No irony intended.

            2012…was idiocy your other name?

God's own country!

I was walking on the streets of Mumbai this morning. It was 10.30 am. A crowded street filled with people to board a bus had a stretch of vegetable vendors by the curbside. A bridge construction had blocked the other side of the road. Under the bridge, cabs and rickshaw drivers had turned that area into a parking station. People had occupied a part of the road negotiating vegetable prices with the vendors. The line of people waiting for the bus was increasing.

I saw the bus cross the intersection. Before the bus could reach the bus stand, a big Honda Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)car was trying to make its way on that street. Meanwhile, the bus crossed the signal and was waiting behind the car honking away. The driver in the car was on his cell phone talking, ignoring the honking of the bus.

The people in the line were shouting. The car was parked diagonal blocking the street. There was no chance for a bus to make its way through.

A few young men approached the car driver and started abusing:

“****-Dee-Ke, dikhta nahi hai kya…itni badi bus khadi hai…hatt yahan se”.

The car driver shut the car windows and decided to stay parked.

The bus kept honking, the car driver stayed adamant parked in the middle of the road, the people waiting to get into the bus kept screaming, the vendors by the curb side gathered around the car driver. Amidst all this, I was still trying to figure out how to make my way through, to reach my doctor’s office to make it in time for my 11 o clock appointment.

The hawaldar (traffic police) was called. He had tobacco in his mouth and was also talking on the cell phone. 5-10 minutes after he was explained the situation he spoke with the car driver. The conversation was as follows:

Hawaldar: Arrey Namashkar Saheb. Kasa Kaay? Suresh Saheb kashe aahe? Aaj Andheri mein kaise? (Hello sir. How is it going? How is Suresh Sir? How come you are in Andheri today?)

Car driver: Sagla theek aahe (all is well)

Hawaldar: Bara bara, kaay saaheb, bus ubhi aahe maage. Thoda pudhe park karta kaay? (ok ok. Sir the bus is standing behind the car. Would you mind parking a little ahead?)

Car Driver: Mala shivya deto toh. Tyaala saanga Sorry bolaayala mala. Mag me gaadi pudhe ghetto. (He cursed at me. Tell him to say sorry to me. Then I shall move my car ahead)

The hawaldar went to the 4 young men standing there still furious. He told them to apologize to the MLA’s son. He explained to them that if they don’t apologize, the car will not move and he won't be able to do much. He cannot put his job at risk and argue with the MLA’s son. The men refused to apologize.

There was a huge fight between the people screaming at the bus driver to take a different route, between the hawaldar and the young men, between the bus driver and the MLA's son.

Meanwhile it was 11 o clock and I was already late for my appointment. I decided to take a different route and make my way through to the doctor. It is 2 pm now and I am on my way back home. 2 in the afternoon and that road has now been blocked with the MLA’s son not budging to move the car, the bus is in the same place it was but empty, the people have dispersed.

I am left writing this article wondering how does this city and country operate on a daily basis.

God’s own country indeed!

Lost in transition…

Earlier today I was speaking with a friend and she asked me how I felt about not being in my own country.

While that triggered a lot of thoughts and emotions, it made me wonder how our entire generation lives in this medley of different cultures.

As culturally aloof as we think we might have become and conquered the fear of accepting our identities, it is as hard to leave the want and desperation of wanting to be a part of your own country. The furiousness of not being completely tolerating of any country yet wanting to be a character of both cultures is intimidating by itself. The struggle to call any other country your own and the fight to accept not being a part of your own country yet wanting to be one amongst those people is almost a never ending process.

The identity crisis and lack of the sense of belonging together weave a frame of mind that prances with abandonment and creates emotional spaces and we end up lingering with the over-dramatization of culture, religion, belief and behavior.

What is the color of culture, what is the rhythm of religion, what is the crispness of belief and what is the sound of behavior?

The memorandum of unsettlement is a prism through which the reflections of self, get shaped in such a way that the own appears ironic and the distant appears own. Yet living in that coded abstruse belt feels like an ever so irrecoverable and preoccupying maze which never speaks for itself most certainly but almost always interrogates you, while most of us are still bridging the gap to find ourselves amidst the tangled system.

Our generation is most ineptly lost in this transition of identity and culture hunt.