I've had a great and very memorable year, a year with its own ups and downs. A year of smiles intertwined with frowns, but far away and in peace.
The first thought that came to mind after landing on this part of the world is surprisingly a song
Bad economy? Don't know. NY with all its losses still had christmas lights, 30 Rockefeller Plaza sported a fab tree, but this part of the world is glum.
I thought it was just a feeling, a concoction of my own mind, and then I met my accountant, who couldn't contain his joy as he spoke of New York, Central Park, Madison Square, and the one thing which we both fancied alike, the caricaturists' in New York. He didn't hesitate to switch from numbers and forms to the folder where he had archived his best memories of Manhattan. He smiled as he chanted the best things about the city, it's fast paced life and how people wouldn't forget to smile as they walked past you in a frenzied rush. I wanted to ask him, then why don't the people here smile at you, why do they only dash past you? Instead I wished aloud how great it would be if they replicated the Central Park concept in this city. He replied almost in the same breath, "you know they are trying to restore the area around the creek". I hope.
On the brighter side two people smiled at me today, one is an auto driver who wanted ten bucks more, and another one is the auto driver who charged me 100% more for another trip.
Lets just say in the last couple of days I have changed gears from near perfection to almost anarchy.
But when I think of the last year, I guess I couldn't have asked for more. It was like seeing an oasis, not a mirage, a real oasis.
I don't want to think about Mumbai or the Gaza strip, I don't want to remember the job cuts, the auto industry, the gas prices, the Exxon profits, Fannie and Freddie, Fritzl's of the world, Chinese milk and eggs, the Bush administration or the "hunk"administration that is to come. I run away from bureaucracy, red-tapism and auto drivers. Bad omen, all that.
I close my eyes and pray a small one - liner as I imagine the next year
"Loka samastha sukhino bhavanthu"
And remember the smile from a little boy that I captured in my memory. He's just over one and a half years old, doesn't know a single word from the above mentioned important paragraph. He mumbles sweet nothings and smiles a million - dollar smile.
Thats the only note I hold in my mind in anticipation of tomorrow. No champagne, no celebration, no red carpet, no rich, no poor, no ritz, no glitz, no glamor, just a small smile, a prayer, and a wish that my friend who serves the Indian Navy makes it back safely after patrolling too close to Pakistani waters tomorrow.
And ya, most importantly, I'm not going to read the news until later tomorrow. Everything else can wait, the next moment and the year that follows is mine, to make another important memory, and later, archive.
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