Here it is once again, a dawn and promise and the potential of a new year. While the grammar polices are caning about how we should call it, Twenty ten or Two thousand ten, I am welcoming it anyway. After all, babies don't have a name when they arrive. But that doesn't make them less desirable.
In earlier days of life, when a new year shoved out an old year, I witnessed my mother placing a twelve pages calendar on top of the recent year's obsoleted calendar. While exquisite pictures seated on the upper section of each page, the lower section hosted Gregorian calendar in English script juxtaposed by Hindu calendar in Assamese script. No doubt, she never missed a single pooja or festival and her children never enjoyed a fake school holiday. All days were fun and play. Naturally I didn't understand the calendar. I wished all the dates were marked in red color. Red meant a holiday.
Other than the towering and imposing calendar, a different kind of calendars arrived too- mostly in folded boxes and frames and accompanied by a greeting card. These were addressed to me and my sister with a beautifully calligraphed greeting message. From relatives and well wishers. We placed them in corners of decoration tables and sometimes nailed them on the wall. But then it stopped for me when we reached adolescent and continued for my sister. They arrived in all sizes, shapes, pictures and folding techniques. Apparently she had to hide most of them to escape from parental anger.
Now those are gone. Digital lord has overruled paper lord, calligraphy replaced by font style, folding technique by animation. The greetings come fast and fade fast from memory. You can pick up an e-card and send to hundreds in 2-3 clicks. Most of us don't even do that. We just forward the greetings as if they are transitive. On this year eve, one person who until then I had been finding beautiful sent me a greeting without removing/editing out the original sender's name! I wished her a bright future and coffined the idea of our joint future.
I generally don't believe in so called new year resolutions. However, when I see off 2010 after one year I would like to watch most of the below accomplished.
1. Health - a)after more than five years seating job, I have gathered enough fat around my waist. Time to dust them off. I need to trim by 3-4 inches.
b) A full body health check-up for any probable weakness. A decade of unrestrained food and living habit have definitely left its footprints.
2. Food - Never ever waste it and ensure that no one at home do it. Now I don't usually do this. But I would ensure that no one under my direct influence does it either. How can my ethics allow to do that after watching this video? You can afford, no doubt. But someone somewhere is dying because of our 'I don't care' attitude.
3. Environment- Avoid plastic. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
4. Reading - I wish I can manage to read all of the below in this year. I don't know how I can access all of them though.
1. Aldous Huxley - A brave new world.
2. Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart.
3. James Joyce -Ulysses
4. Gabriel García Márquez -One Hundred Years of Solitude
Apart from these novels, also in the wish list is Buddhism.
5. Writing - Write the damn novel. Write, no escape, no distraction. Put aside all your shiny new ideas which keep blinking now and then. Write more. Write more blogs, more comments. Reply to comments. End of the no reply comment era.
6. Commitment - It is time. That is the air and buzz around me. I believe 10/10/10 is a good figure to get married :D
That's all. Not more, not less. 5) and 6) - look daunting. A year of ambitions and potentials -not mere wishes. But somewhere we have to demarcate ambitions from wishes. I am doing this year.
I thought because I have X and Z already in place, Y will fall eventually in between them. Heck, no. It doesn't. Time to shoot it down. Go and get it. Or can I say, a potential doesn't have a name unless released and realized?
Release your potentials and watch the garden they create and give it a name.
Happy new year.
