For the 2011th time...

...this is it.. the new dawn of the new year is almost upon us. World over the followers of the Christian calendar feel being on the edge of a cliff, only too willing to fall into a brand new year. Fresh starts, fresh promises, fresh hopes, and possible new beginnings for many! What is it about the new year that puts so many of us in a state of excitement and frenzy? No party seems as big as the one on new year's eve! This is actually a festival of the world which needs no mythological backing. And the countdown starts as November lazily makes way for December, distracting us with the changing seasons. In school and now workplace, December itself is splattered with round the corner festivities of Christmas and the annual exams/quarter end targets. We are working, but we are dazzled and distracted by the hum of excitement which has started around, and is too difficult to miss. The newspapers start coming out with the "hot and not" list of the current year; TV channels have their popular celebrities wishing all a new year, people are happy making, and declaring new years eve plans on Facebook; Year end offers and sales come out for those who enjoy retail therapy. Time Magazine comes out with the person of the year; back home, we are busy dissecting the biggest goon of Indian politics. We reflect on what could have been, and what needs to be done in the new year. 

New Years eve, is a talisman of hope, which everyone carries for the next 330 days, and then starts waiting for another new year!

In this biggest celebration on earth, its hard not to reflect on what all changed, and being taken along on the wave of excitement which has begun... the countdowns, the wishes, the planning are all now underway. We must be achieving something definitely every year, which is why we are eagerly welcoming yet another new year. We may crib and rant and scorn yet again, by February, or probably mid Jan, but things must be waiting to happen, sometime somewhere in 2011, for all of us - all those amazing moments which makes it so worth living!

Even if not amazing, then we have some events definitely to look forward to in the Indian life - 3G life, number portability, Mono rail for Mumbai residents, more Metro lines for the Delhiites, lesser scams, probably more sports events in our country - and other sports shining through, better songs becoming chartbusters!, vegetables not in the price range of gold, lesser terrorism, and an year which is well worthy to mark the beginning of a decade which is expected to be exemplary.

To end, if 2010 brought for me and my close ones new beginnings (college life, engagement), new jobs, new perspectives and better insights, a closeness which is ever present, then I hope 2011 is equally beautiful, if not better...

Cheers to everyone! Happy new year! Begin, with a smile...

Happy Birthday Sis!

I think it was the year when I turned 17 when I knew, she was, exactly like I had hoped for.

Till then I'd had her for about 10 years with me. Right from the baby she'd been to the 10.5 year old that she was then. And that particular winter of 2003, she had left for 2 weeks long holiday to our nani's place.

It was the year I had taken a drop from life's all pleasures.. except studying (!) .. and all my free time was spent with the cute little kid in my life, who unlike the others in family, was NOT growing tall like a beanstalk!

So anyways, she had gone. To nani's place. And we couldn't talk much cos', well STD calls weren't that cheap. And cellphones weren't very popular either. In any case, she didn't have a cellphone, so no use of me having a cellphone on me anyway.

When the plan was being made, I was secretly thrilled, cos' that meant I could hog on all the yummy food and not share with her, and I could play with our pet dogs, and not have her telling me how to have a ''better'' make believe game. And I could sprawl on the bed completely without her scolding me in the night to stop kicking her.

Within first 2 days I realized, my dogs weren't that interesting till I had her weaving out a story and we acted on it. I remember one such act; we used to pretend me and her are two strangers, and both of us carried each one of the two dogs we had... we would walk towards each other like two snooty British women (shimla inspired us tremendously) and make rude comments at each other's pet dogs, or clothes, or accent...

Some other fun "plays" we had was laying out all our books for sale, while we pretended to be the seller or the buyer, and this transaction involved us haggling in the most eastern UP accent that we could muster up.

Sometimes we would just sit and talk about the day, or what all fun we plan to do when we "grow up", read Harry Potter together, or just reminisce about our solo experience (till then) of vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate!

Delicious cuisines were no fun if not to be discussed with, and shared with her. She was the biggest source of genuine fun that year I had before I joined college, so needless to say, when she went on a vacation for 2 weeks, it became very very dull!!

And so for days I contented myself with chats on phone, or looking at her pictures. Suddenly, it felt unreal that I had such a cute, loving sister. I had her! I was actually the big DIDI of this angel looking child!

So on the gushing went, as I silently went on crossing the days in my calendar, awaiting her return eagerly, so that we could resume our routine of play-acts.

When she did come back, however, the first thing we did was not a tearful hug saying how much we had missed each other, but rather a big fight, over something which I can't recall now, but am sure would have been a trivial issue. But at least we were back to acting like the sisters that we were. 

As we grew older, moving to our respective hostels, communication dipped. But obviously, the bond remained. The age gap between us became a little more glaring, as I had my college talks, while she was still a class 7 child. But the cute voice, the talks, just the simple word "Didi" helped make the memories of the play-acts even more cherished.

Having reliance to reliance free calling has helped a lot. Now that she's matured much faster than I did (!), we have been able to understand each other a lot more. No day is complete without having updated each other on the most general of activities of the day, or having dissected and discussed our "feelings" regarding various places/events/people/tom, etc...

Luckily, some innocence of childhood has continued in our talks. Like for instance, we can still discuss Harry Potter for hours on end. We still think about the first time we had vanilla with hot chocolate. We plan impossible trips, events, thinking that now that we're "grown up", we can have the fun we thought of so many years back.

And we still love to talk in various accents, eastern UP being our most favourite.

Today my kid sister has turned 18. New ventures await her, and our life's paths may be totally tangential, but I hope we continue the bond even when we're 80...

...well her 80 and me 87!