2009 Good Riddance

Today is the last day of 2009. I ll be honest and say that it was not a very good year for me. Except Sahej's(my niece) birth, I cant think of anything good that happened this year.

January and February were the most busy months workwise and when I was expecting some good things to happen coz of all the hard work My team got disbanded in March. The appraisals did not happen and there were no salary hikes. Well the slowdown did have its effects felt here too. April and May were spent travelling from Noida to Mohali every weekend as didi was home and she was expecting a baby then. All the travelling and dhakke khaana in buses paid off on 17th May when Sahej was born. She is a complete angel. I havent seen sweeter and more well behaved infants. May God Bless her. This my friends was the only good thing that happened this year.

June July were terrible months as the summers were taking thier toll. Work wise frustrations were rising. Final confirmation was given that there will be no pay hike. Dadi fell seriously ill this time around and we were all very worried for her. She recovered then but had a paralytic stroke later in the year. While going to a place called lansdowne we had an accident in which Arjun lost his Car.

August and september were months of introspection and lot of personal demons being killed. I was able to know a little more about myself. What I wanted from life and how much I would let people affect me? I did come out a lot surer about the answers to such questions. I was growing up and I was sure that I was hating every bit of it and I still try to not think about it. Saurabh just a few days ago had to shout at me and tell me that college was over and life is different now.

October and November had a lot of stuff happening. I had joined a gym the membership of which ended in November and I did not renew it coz supposedly I was preparing for blah examinations. I fell ill in october. The worst phase of living in Noida was on. We had the worst cooks possible. Their food made me even more  sick and I had to waste two entire weeks coz of the fever.

A lot of good stuff kept happening now and then, though on the sidelines. Sid got a Job in NY. Saikat and Eshaan got their joinings. Satadru Bhaiyas marriage in june and Rupika dis in november. Chikki and Abhay came back to chandigarh. Suchu got a job and Arjun and Karan got promoted. I intentionally left these out. The end to all this was worse than I could have ever Imagined.

December which was supposed to be a month of some very important tests. Tested I was alright but these were tests of very different kind. I was done with CAT. I tried to snarl but it was more of like a whimper, not even a meow. Done with that I was preparing for the rest of the papers when I got the news of Didi's accident. It was such a shocking news. I still shudder when I thing what she had to go through. Its saddening and wrenches my heart when I think that with no mistake of hers she might have to live with the effects of the injuries she is still recovering from. With Sahej still a 7 month baby, it kills me when I think about them being kept apart. My family had still not recovered from the shock of didis accident when the news of Papaji's(My Nana) passing away came. It was a double blow and none of us were ready to take it. Mom was completely shattered as she could not even mourn her fathers death. She was too busy taking didi's care.

As Papaji always taught us to accept gods will and never doubt his actions, I can only pray to god for healing the wounds that 2009 left soon. May we all be blessed by the almighty and I hope and pray that 2010 is better and brings happiness in everyones lives. 

Is it really a throw of dice?

I am feeling a little lost.
Dont have much to share.
Should be over soon.

The Wooden Cigarette

In spite of all the rants going on about global warming it had been a cold winter in his city. It had been raining incessantly since morning and a snowstorm was predicted. The radiator in his almost empty office, most people had taken off due to bad weather, could barely keep his teeth from chattering. Time and again the sound of the blizzard against the windows would scare him a little and break his concentration. He was finally happy that the dark gloomy day had come to an end and it was time to go home. He was already thinking about the cozy interiors of his two bedroom home in which he used to live alone. Few sips of scotch before going to sleep would be perfect, he mused.

He came out of office fully packed in an overcoat, muffler and a knit cap. It had stopped raining but the cold and the dampness hit him hard and he decided to take a cab till 5th street from where he would walk a short distance to his home and not completely skip the only exercise he used to indulge in. He hollered a cab and shouted 5th street at the driver without even getting inside completely. The cabbie seemed to be in an even greater hurry and stepped on the gas as soon as he got the signal.

The interior of the cab was much warmer than the freezing cold outside but instinctively he put his hands in his coat pockets. His fingers touched a long slender object. It was a wooden dummy cigarette which doctors suggested to patients who were trying to quit cigarettes. He had been recently diagnosed with a mild respiratory problem and the doctor had asked him to give up on one of his most loved things, real cigarettes packed with the real tobacco. The doctor had advised him to buy one of these wooden lookalikes, just to keep something in the fingers when one has nothing else to do. Out of habit he put the wooden cigarette to his lips, took a long puff and released a large amount of imaginary smoke. The cabbie came up with 10 clever remarks but kept them to himself as he saw color return to the old man's cheeks. The wooden cigarette did work sometimes.

The cab reached 5th street and as he was about to get off after paying the fare, the cabbie offered him a real cigarette and some matches. It was an act of pity. To avoid the hassle of protesting he took them and put them in his pocket. He started his walk home lost in his thoughts when his reverie was broken by a large drop of chilling cold water on his nose and he saw people running about everywhere looking for shelter. The rain now was worse than it had been all day. He himself just made it to a tin sheet extension of the roof of a closed grocery shop. A lady and a little girl of 6 or 7 also came running under the same tin roof. He tried to not notice and avoid unnecessary conversation. His hands inadvertently went inside his pockets but this time they felt the real cigarette. He remembered the cabbie. He smiled at his badluck. He was trying to quit and people he did not even know were offering him cigarettes. All his hard work and discipline had now come to this. A cold unforgiving winter night and a cigarette in his hands. He contemplated and re-contemplated. He repeated to himself that it would be just this one last cigarette tonight, to keep him alive in this godforsaken weather. He was done with all the chain smoking he had to do. "If you start again after quitting, its your first cigarette all over again and its easiest to quit after the first one", he remembered the dialogue from a wisdom movie, as he liked to call the movies where there was no story but people talking about random stuff like coffee, truth, lies, sex, life, cigarettes. No story but people talking about life... cigarettes.

He thought hard but in the end put the cigarette to his lips and lit it with matches the cabbie had given him. How thoughtful of him to give me the matches too, he thought. He took the first puff and then the second and then the third. Ohhhhh... how he had missed the feeling of hot smoke going right through him. The nicotine refreshing his nerves and bringing that alertness in his eyes. He was filled with a rare feeling only smokers can experience, contentment. He smiled. His chain of thoughts was broken by a sound. The little girl standing under the tin had started coughing and was looking at him accusingly. He looked at the remaining cigarette in his hand and cursed in his mind. Children, how he hated them, always taking away the fun out of life. He stubbed the cigarette with his boot and walked into the rain.

He thought about his own daughter who had left him years ago. He needed to be alone that night. He put his hands in his pockets and pulled out the wooden cigarette once again. He took one last puff out of it and threw it away.

~<0>~

I am not much pleased with the title.

~<0>~

Its a happy day today :D

Its here and I am kinda worried.

Praying...