2011 - Of Eternal Sunshine, French Revolutions, Black Outs, Heartbreaks, Backpacking, Countless Blessings and a Bottomless Pit of Awesomeness!!
Wow! It’s been a whole year. And an eventful one, mind you! 5 countries, 16 cities, 43 flights and 360 odd days later, here I am, looking back at some of the best times of my life. In many ways, I still feel the same – confused, excited, tired, apprehensive, sleepy, blessed, philosophical, lazy, and finger-snapping happy. Of course I feel older, because that’s just what the years do to you. Assuming I live up to be a 100 (Brr…scary thought!), I just successfully spent a quarter of it!
Twenty point One One (20.11) reasons that made 2011 a handful! (in no particular order)
1. The Epic Hampi trip and the awesome kick-start to 2011. Endless paddy fields, barbeques, ruins, hammocks, “majjiga”, brilliant company, great photographs and even greater memories! :)
2. The Crazy Slope and The Crazy Slopers! Tenthouse 3.0 found a new address this year– The Slope!
USP: Bruno, Ramesh Bhaiya, Googler Gang and the slope of course.
3. Mustang Maharaj: The latest entrant into the Maharaj Family! May 16th saw the shiny, sleek, carbon grey “tall boy” enter my life. My first car! (sheer gleefulness :P)
4. Buckets…erm, sorry… gallons of tears shed under the shower, under the blanket, in the balcony, at airports, secret hiding places…only to realize that you don’t get to bargain with life! And even worse, having to rely on kajal and heavy eye-make up the next day to look less oriental.
5. Driving through the roads of Hyderabad after India beat Pakistan at the Cricket World Cup Semi Finals. Three words – Ecstatic.Triumphant.Legendary!
6. Singapore-June 2011 -The Black Out: – 7 hours of sheer darkness! 7 hours of complete chaos! 7 hours of blissful sleep!
Lessons Learnt:
- Sometimes dancing on stage in front of random people is a whole lot of fun.
- You can sleep like a baby on a noisy flight of stairs to the dance floor. Apparently, high-spirits are all it takes.
- White wine, Red wine, beer and doughnuts are a lethal combination
7. “All roads lead to Rome” they say! But to actually walk those roads, hustle on the cobbled paths, run across the Vatican City, “roll over” the sacred stairs and just tread the path that Julius Caesar once marched on was truly inspirational.
Europa Highlights!
Pope. French Embassy. Sortie. Champs Elysees. French Fries. Nishantha. Scary Old Woman. Swiss Guard. Cappuccino. There was a girl. Frozen Toes. Oye, Oye. Alessandaro’s Palace. Wrong Tickets. Platform Nights. Beef. Pink Socks. Goosebumps. Inspiration. Latin.
8. To go or not to go? The great S3 reorg and the even greater relocation drama. The 10 second crucial conversation, the post-office meeting with Juhi and the truly amazing Q3 and Q4 that followed suit.
9. The endless questions and answer sessions with the Dude up there, the disappointments that followed suit, the highs and the lows, the realizations and the escapisms, the smiles and the frowns, the irrational “signs” from the universe. All of it happened off! Just Like That!
10. Reconciling, Re-bonding and Reappearing! (I’ll leave it at that!)
11. Success Story #3: The heart-warming feeling of witnessing my third success story in my role as Cupid. Nisha & Pradeep – Engaged – July 2, 2011.
12. Losing Near and Dear. Just one day you’re laughing and talking about being the worst at keeping in touch. And Suddenly. Just like that, you’ll never see them again. Ever.
Aishwarya, I miss you tons. I can’t believe you are not here. I think about you often and will never forgive myself for not keeping in touch as often as I could. RIP.
13. Tenthouse Nights. Endless Chats until 3:00 AM. Chick Flick Nights. Crazy House Warming Parties. Super Fast Cleaning Stunts. Bowls of Dip. Midnight Chai. Havoc Cooking. Burnt Rice. Upma days. Elaborate Meals. Beam Cable. Hyderabad Summers.
14. Special Weekends with Special People – Westin Brunch, Chelsea Matches, Five Point Gift Game, Loads of O, Bear and everything nice! :) Sigh!
15. Quality Family Time: The Chennai trip in Jan, the road-trip with Achan, Amma, Chat and me for kutty Paru’s wedding, the tea and pazham pori pitstop and the Cochin Trip were some of my most memorable times this year. Spending time with cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles and aunts – being bullied into singing, baby-sitting and even the dreadful “M” talk – enjoyed every minute of it.
Family – wherever you are, please take a well-deserved bow – You guys are awesome! :)
16. The EN APAC Phone + Suspended – Boost + Chat +p360X (Help me out here Kailash! I am kinda losing track) team taught me that it was not only about working late nights, but working early mornings as well.
Dark Circles were back in fashion. Be Panda and Act Panda was the motto while working with the QuinFu Pandas!
3:30 AM Coffee Breaks, 6:00 AM Gyan, 11:00 PM presentations and graphs, aligning and re-aligning, Chotu and family, the hiring and the firing – All of it added some more colour to 2011. My response to you – the team is “I hear you”! ;)
17. I hate hospitals. 2011 reaffirmed that feeling for me. I hated every single day of the week that Thambi Mama was in hospital. I hated the smell, I hated the scene, I hated the colour – hated everything about it. Hated having to pretend to be brave when in real-life, I was shitting bricks. Thank You God for not making it worse, but please don’t put me through that again. I have a weak heart and am not as brave as you think I am. I hurt easily.
18. The heartaches and the heartbreaks. Period.
20. Blueberry Cheese Cake, Palada, Sharkara Pongal, Indu Veg Meal, Pazham Pori, Vicks Muttai, Tirupathi Filter Coffee, Raw Rice, Rohit – your home cooked meal in cold, cold Dublin, Idly and Butter, Velliamma’s Prawns Dish and Red Rice – You have managed to find a way into my tummy’s heart this year – Congrats!
20.11. My super awesome support system! You guys know who you are.
If you have listened to me whine, heard my boring stories more than once, pretended to be interested in them in spite of that, accompanied me on endless chai breaks, been my co-pilot, shared my ice-cream and my hot water, been my eye make-up artist on not-so-nice days, been my punching bag some days, let me cry alone, let me sleep for an extra minute, allowed me to graciously pull your legs (feeling hill, fi!!, herree, crispy-fried bacon, gold-fish memories, detective stories, chappals), heard the CSAT numbers WoW, shared a quiet moment, laughed with me and at me, held my hand while crossing roads, got me food when I’ve forgotten to eat and most importantly been there – you know you have no choice! You’re unfortunately stuck in my Support System Web!
To all of you.. Thank You for being there and not giving up on me!!
Much Gratitude and Fingers Crossed for 2012
Me
Coming Soon: A photo journey of the 12 Months Well-Spent.
Love it! Hoping 2011 has made you less reserved and more open. Looking forward to seeing more public posts in 2012! If you've shared these 20 publicly, you've made at least 20 people smile!
ReplyDeleteWrite on! :) Champs Elysees! :D
When you put it like that :D Lily is right.. i am all smiles :D the 7mins i spent reading this brought back snapshots of (all) our shared moments this past year :) most specifically our driving classes and early morning call outs of the "caladj, brake!!" :D Aswa you definitely have to have to continue writing and ofcourse let us have a peek in on it :) to many more of these ~CHEERS!!
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