2020 Meanderings

2020 began with thoughts of decades, achievements and general goodwill. Social media was ablaze with the Citizenship Amendment Act and its implications - sometimes it felt as if Apocalypse was at the doorstep so much so that it did not feel like one was heralding a brand new year. It is a new decade and year nevertheless. A new year, no matter what, engages one in introspection and a sense of beginnings. If you are of the reflective kind, then the old giving way to new holds the tugs of your heart's strings and coerces you to look back and forward.

I was thankful for 2019 on a personal level while I was in trepidation about the general happenings around me and my country. While my heart was overflowing with the turn of events in my life, I was unable to savour them because my country was reeling under protests of CAA and related issues. The economy of my country worries me in spite of me not being an economist. Can one be happy about something when the country is at a loss for common sense?

But hope is a good thing and I have it flowing in abundance out of the depths of my being and as long as it is present, I could gladly look forward to 2020.

How was it for you?

May we face the coming year, 2020, with the steady serenity of a tree — that supreme lover of light, always reaching both higher and deeper, rooted in a network of kinship and ringed by a more patient view of time.

(Via Brain Pickings)

Picture Courtesy: Blogger's archive

Ruminations before the beginning of a new academic year

My college on a rainy day

My college reopens in three days. It will be my third year in this college and after spending two years with the various departments and people, one feels that one has seen it all. In spite of my two years here, I feel a certain anxiety coupled with anticipation when I look forward to the coming year. I will be teaching the same subjects albeit one and more or less familiar with the students as well. The introduction to new energy levels and slightly different goals and aspirations gives me the feeling that a thousand butterflies are preparing to take flight from the pit of my stomach.

I wonder whether every teacher has this feeling of an anxious anticipation. Perhaps they might or they would have become comfortably numb carrying on their business like a robot which is devoid of any tingly pre-academic year sensation.

The path leading to the main entrance again, on a rainy day

Alongside, I also wonder whether I will be like this after ten years. Will a new academic year make me feel giddy with excitement and anxiety. Will I look forward to the raging adrenalines of young students as they burst forth with tireless hormones and shiny smart phones. Will I be able to cope with the information overload that my students seem to possess, challenging me with news of the latest gadget or the selling price of an IPL team. Will I smirk at them when they say that FC Goa has won over Chennaiyin even without me having watched a single match.

Although I complain to others and the students themselves that the ought to shake off their susegaad attitude, I like their company better than the whiny adults who lose no time in making lives miserable for those around them. Well, this is not a sweeping generalisation and all students/adults do not fit into that description. There is a lot of trust and sense of belonging when I am in the company of students. To cite an example, once a senior member of faculty happened to be a bit rude with me and immediately the students started showing their solidarity by vocally stating their position on the rudeness. Even though that incident warmed my insides, I am careful not to take sides or even show a minute iota of affirming their actions. Well, sometimes I tend to romanticise the student-teacher relationship.

The lovely triangle campus with glistening rain

Now, standing at the threshold of a brand new academic year, I cannot wait to find out what kind of students I will be meeting for each class and how they will respond to my theatrics and eccentricities -- They will either take to it or brush me aside as another old soul who tries to be in line with the young minds of this generation.

Ah, well! I hear the pitter-patter of the raindrops as I write, diverting my attention to the beautiful weather. I shall pause to revel in the rain and leave ruminations of my new academic year to be soaked by the smell of red earth and pouring rain :)

Picture credits: Author's own

Revival of newness - Cheers to 2015

2014 was productive and resourceful in more ways than one. It spotlighted my weakness and showed me that however I resist something, I yield at the end. The year also enabled me to discover some new people, places and traits within me. Like the beginning of every new year, I look forward to 2015 with hope, longing and joy. To be alive and kicking is something that is not the stronghold of many. Many people who started 2014, did not see its end and I am grateful for being able to do so. I believe that another year is given to me to continue the purpose of my living.

I wish joy always to you and yours and may this year enable you to evolve as an individual within and outside.

Cheers to new beginnings and strength to not-so-new beginnings.

Happy New Year 2015

 

Expecting changes

I have just returned from a class. The students seemed to be in a hazy state of mind and looked at me blankly when I posed a question to them. The question was: What are you expecting from this year? Save one student, all the others stared at me as if I had committed a great earth-shaking blunder. Well, I was completely amazed. One student even told me: I expect nothing. Well, here I am trying to be as normal as possible after coming back from a two-week break and putting on my best smile and trying to initiate a conversation.

Sometimes it so happens that every day passes off as something similar. A new year is not seen as something to look forward to and it passes off as boringly as the other days. I guess it's very easy to be cynical and try acting as if nothing matters. It does take an effort to expect something with the breaking of another new year. Afterall, we are getting another chance to repair the past where things weren't as favourable. Maybe everything was perfect in the bygone year and hence one does not feel the need to expect anything.

There were years when I was a cynical being. Trying to be a killjoy when someone announced a birthday or a new year wish. I completely wiped the joy that was vibrating from the individual. He/she was subject to my theories of nonsense and only after I released my dose of vitriol, would I let that person go. Now, when I look back, I regret those moments and times when cynicism took hold of me. That is precisely what happens when one reads too much of newspaper. Then one day, I stopped being cynical. I started seeing the joy that these moments bring. A new year is a gift. It is definitely an opportunity to start afresh. It is a time to again pick up those bits of us which have been neglected, overlooked and abused.

Coming back to my class. I didn't want to bore my students on the morning of my first class with them, by giving them a lecture on how to expect something from the year and making it happen. Well, they will know when they have to know. Time is a great teacher, isn't it?

So, what do you think?

Image: Internet

Looking forward to 2012

This year has been quite eventful in every sphere of my life, I should say. For the first time in my life, I got chicken-pox; After years of toiling, I submitted my Ph.D thesis and I also willingly gave up my single-hood. Well, the aforementioned were the highlights, if I may say so but there there have been other aspects of the year which gave life a wholesome effect. Blogplicity, an interactive blogging community gave me lovely blogger pals and their blogs, this year.

Looking back, I am older than last year and younger than what I will be next year but that has not hindered any process and progress, of course, I have changed my moisturizers and lotions. I have lost touch with people with whom I used to correspond and interact when 2011 began. I do miss them but then life had other paths which were already carved out, for me and them. They will always be on my mind and I wish them good health, prosperity, wholesome life and above all joy in every sphere of their lives.

Learned to compromise in a big way and also learnt that compromise is the only way in which life can go on without much breakdowns. Well, I don't like that word now. It irks me: COMPROMISE.

Reading the variety of blogs that are littered over blogland, I realise how much topics are out there and how much is left to explore. I must say that 2011 has been a boom time for many blogs. Well, well,  . . .

For the first time, I was stranded in a train while the cyclone Thane passed. When I read of the many deaths and destruction caused by the cyclone in today's paper, I realise the intensity of the situation.

I don't know whether I have become wiser this year but I know for sure that life is full of surprises (perhaps, shocks) and those arrive at a time when one least expects them. And that the phrase, 'I have moved on,' and 'Move on with life' is quite overrated. Even some institutions which have been held dear by many are quite overrated. Well, some people don't realise that truth. Good for them. A little funny for people on the other side, like me, for instance.

The world has lost many artists that have coloured my growing up years. Though their deaths didn't affect me personally, I do miss their presence in this world. That they lived in the same world as me gave me solace. But now they are no more. Maybe good for them to have escaped this life.

Inspite of everything, the new year holds promises and new beginnings and I look forward to it with the same child-like pleasure of my early years. The new year does have something, isn't it. William Arthur Ward is just right when he said:

“Another fresh new year is here .
. .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!” 

Image: Internet

Joy and peace as you step into 2011

You have done what you could — some blunders and absurdities have crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

          ~ Emerson

Image: Internet