2009

I don't believe in year-end summaries/'best-of' lists. Most of them are never objective, rarely fair and mostly boring. Unless it's the Bangalore Times' round-up of earth-shattering celebrity break-ups and make-ups and such. Those are always fun to read.

But this year has been interesting (Yea, yea, like any other year will be)and this blog post is an attempt to introspect, look back, look within; a deeply personal analysis of what made this year in my life remarkable. Hardly as exciting as anything Bangalore Times has to say but that's life. This is an analysis of an ordinary girl's 2009 -- all for the reading pleasure(I'm being presumptuous, of course) of random people on the internet-- that's how deeply personal this is.

Getting down to business, indulge me as I tell you of lessons learnt from the year past:


February 2009
Sometimes, life takes its course. Karma tags along.
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past, sir Robert, not even you" says a conniving Mrs. Chevely to a man she is threatening in the movie An Ideal Husband. I haven't had to buy back pasts, nothing so sinister. Or glamorous. But there's no leaving anything behind. What goes around comes back around. Even if what I'm referring to may not even be a case of that Justin Timberlake song I used to like(don't tell anyone), karmas do run over dogmas.


April 2009
Don't listen to advice you didn't ask for.
J is a lady I would have never liked if I had had a choice. She is loud, thinks she is funny, and believes exactly what she wants. And those are not even the reasons I wouldn't be best-friends with her. She eyed me rather suspiciously initially (contemptuously, if my paranoid mind is taken seriously) but seemed to warm up to me later (Joy!).

The woman did, however, think that her infinite wisdom and expert advice was due and direly necessary in the case of this young girl-at-sea. J isn't exactly the set-hearts-aflutter type. Or your stoic and graceful girl-next-door. And the day I got advice on my social life from her, I had to put my foot down, make mental notes and perhaps etch them on some nerve tissue lest they get lost.

"So are you people seeing other people?" she enquired.
Everybody at the table hemmed and hawed and made reluctant conversation on ambiguities and ambivalence(s).
"Happens. Happens" she nodded like she had personally co-authored two books on the subject herself. "When I met Y, I knew he was the one." she assured us in response to doubts we hadn't raised, calmly telling us about wisdom that comes with time and how she expertly handled social pursuits and why I(the others had politely moved on to a private conversation) should learn from her. And then she descended into a detailed explanation of her fears over dating an engineer. (Y, that adorable goochi-woochi Y, was a 'software engineer')

"You know, ever since I've been a little girl, I've hated the Science-studying, equation-drawing, geeky types!(sic)My family is full of artists. Imagine how shocked they must have been." she said shrilly, as I went ' Awww' with all the sincerity I could muster in response to details of a relationship between two people one of who I had never met and the other, I'd known for three days.

The next half hour went relatively well: I intently listened to J's worries about the possible culture clashes between Punjabis and Malyalis. "How can they eat anything with grated coconut." she exclaimed worriedly while explaining the intricacies of this coupling fixed by the heavens themselves and how marriage-oh that scary proposition- was going to be a melange of clashes as much as cultures.She was all the more worried about that strange piece of garment the Malyalis wore. "Punjabis at home will go on about the munda in a mundu" she said in a tone that I judged (with only partial conviction) as humorous.
"So how did you meet Y" I said, recalling the standard-issue question one must ask fawningly in such type of matters and she waited for me to complete my question.
"You have met, haven't you?" I demanded in mock horror as the two of us laughed good-naturedly at my clever joke, tapping table tops and covering mouthfuls of spontaneous laughter.
"I can't wait to." she said, not noticing that I'd suddenly stopped laughing. "He's coming back from Dubai next year" she said with undisguised excitement, matching glee with a twinkle in her eye for the special Orkut-friend she'd finally see in flesh and blood.



March 2009
Generalisations Suck
Must've been 2. AM when I was reading about Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence or the art of teaching computers to think like humans. "Humans have the ability to estimate values in case of lack of information." the textbook declares, going on to discussing the challenge in getting computers to do the same. And I'm all Oh-my-god-are-you-kidding-me? Until now, I thought that was what we called the delicate act of conjecture. Of assuming what you thought was right when you didn't know better.

The last thing I want is for my dear old PC to start judging me without knowing details. Everybody else I know, has done that already. 


August 2009
Karma and the strangeness of it.
You know the problem with believing that everything we do is the fruit of past actions? It is an idea that is impossible to subscribe to when you're knee deep in shit and something you will readily agree to when good things happen. Karma hangs confusedly in balance. Because great things happened, as did nasty shit.


September 2009
Bangalore Times rocks.
This year, something important changed in my life. After seven years of undulating support and loyalty to the Benett and Coleman group's flagship daily rag, I went back to my roots and to Deccan Herald. The mornings have changed forever. No Bangalore Times. No BT interviews of Kannada stars. No BT articles on what Manoviraj Khosla thinks of the financial repercussions of the Indo-Moldovan Nuclear deal. Except for that Panorama section (Which isn't so cool anymore, in the age of bookmarking sites) and the Sports section (At least they don't have Sourav Ganguly jokes), most other pages are sleep-inducing, to say nothing of their focus-dissolving splitting of articles and unceremoniously shoving details to page-59. Please Metrolife, get yourselves a booze-loving slut or two. Then the language of the articles might improve. (Degree in journalism strictly optional.)

November 2009 
Pigs rule and donkeys work. Remember Animal Farm.

Mad month. Make or break. Priority mismatch. It broke.

December 2009
Age is not just a number
 I turned 21 a month ago. Scary 21. Thats two years gone out of what I've reasoned will be the best eleven years of my life. Shrieeeek! I haven't even done anything. Looking back on four years of college, it seems like how-ever-much one tries to experience new stuff, avoid moping and learn to walk, there will always be tonnes left to do. So much to read, so much to know and so much to see.  


This shall end with a sentiment that summarises much that can't be said (owing to lack of clarity besides lack of articulation-skills) perfectly and circumspect-ly: Ayyo!


Edit: I'm making this a tag. All of you do round-up posts too!
I shall tag Padma, Soda, Merin, Nakul, Chaitanya