It’s a new year once more…. At the beginning of the year I look forward to the year with a lot of hope and expectations. I find that I also tend to look back at the year that is over to see what it did in my life…
2011 was really a mixed year.
At the beginning of the year (Jan & Feb), my mother went into the hospital couple of times – she underwent a procedure on her right knee the second time. But from that point onwards, slowly her health improved.
We celebrated my father’s 75th birthday in June. To start with, he didn’t want us to celebrate but we managed to convince him on the condition that we will not do anything religious. So we had a small function where his grandson sang for him, his grandniece gave a dance performance and we had a poetry reading session. A lot of people came over to meet him. Overall, it was a very good function and the celebration was the kind that suited best for the kind of person he is.
My cousin got married at the beginning of December. This was just about a month after my grandmother’s death… We all were coming together just about a month after her death and we kept remembering her… we all went first to Nagpur and then from there onto Raipur – which is where the wedding took place. This was the first time that we all got onto a bus (a bus hired just for us) as the “marriage party” and went from one place to another, in a typical Indian wedding style. It turned out to be quite an experience! And while we had a lot to complain about in the journey (the bus was not comfortable, the roads were really bad, the driver was driving very slowly and stopping quite often; oh and while returning we got stuck in bad traffic, which meant we reached Nagpur around 2:00 AM etc.), it gave us some wonderful memories of having had fun together. We will be talking about it for years to come… “Remember when we were going to Raipur….”
I made two wonderful trips in 2010 –
In the month of April I went to Assam with Motiya, Girish & Ojas; It was just so awesome. I wrote about that trip on my return (Awesome Asssam).
Then in August, I went on a trans-Himalayan jeep safari and visited the land of thousand passes – Ladakh! This was a trip that I had been looking forward to for years…. I was supposed to go in 2010 but thanks to the cloud burst, that had to be cancelled. The trans-Himalayan safari was definitely an experience like no other and Ladakh was everything I had expected and more – its a place of start, heart wrenching and stunning beauty. I wrote about the safari (Trans-Himalayan Jeep Safari) and about Leh (Leh). I think I should write about our visit to Nubra Valley – the high altitude desert where we saw double hump camels and the surreal Pangong Tso (lake).
Looking back at the year, it also seems like the year of death… We lost so many well-known personalities from various fields - Just way too many of them. The two deaths that I felt most saddened by were those of Bharatratna Pt. Bhimsen Joshi in Jan 2011 and Yahoo man, Shammi Kapoor in August 2011.
But the one death that affected me the most was that of my grandmother’s. I lost my grandmother in the month of November, but she had been very ill since the beginning of the year. While I (and others around her) knew that it was time for her to go – she was bed ridden for over 1.5 years – and while there were times when we all had felt that God should relieve her from her state… when she did go, it made me (and others) very sad. She had been an important part of my life for a long time – and it was such a positive presence! She was someone who loved unconditionally.
She passed away early morning on 4th of Nov, very peacefully, surrounded by her son, daughters and grandchildren. I miss her so much!! Someone saw an old photograph of hers and said that I looked a little like her. I was so pleased with that! But I wish to be more like her in more ways than just the looks…
2011 was really a mixed year.
At the beginning of the year (Jan & Feb), my mother went into the hospital couple of times – she underwent a procedure on her right knee the second time. But from that point onwards, slowly her health improved.
We celebrated my father’s 75th birthday in June. To start with, he didn’t want us to celebrate but we managed to convince him on the condition that we will not do anything religious. So we had a small function where his grandson sang for him, his grandniece gave a dance performance and we had a poetry reading session. A lot of people came over to meet him. Overall, it was a very good function and the celebration was the kind that suited best for the kind of person he is.
My cousin got married at the beginning of December. This was just about a month after my grandmother’s death… We all were coming together just about a month after her death and we kept remembering her… we all went first to Nagpur and then from there onto Raipur – which is where the wedding took place. This was the first time that we all got onto a bus (a bus hired just for us) as the “marriage party” and went from one place to another, in a typical Indian wedding style. It turned out to be quite an experience! And while we had a lot to complain about in the journey (the bus was not comfortable, the roads were really bad, the driver was driving very slowly and stopping quite often; oh and while returning we got stuck in bad traffic, which meant we reached Nagpur around 2:00 AM etc.), it gave us some wonderful memories of having had fun together. We will be talking about it for years to come… “Remember when we were going to Raipur….”
I made two wonderful trips in 2010 –
In the month of April I went to Assam with Motiya, Girish & Ojas; It was just so awesome. I wrote about that trip on my return (Awesome Asssam).
Then in August, I went on a trans-Himalayan jeep safari and visited the land of thousand passes – Ladakh! This was a trip that I had been looking forward to for years…. I was supposed to go in 2010 but thanks to the cloud burst, that had to be cancelled. The trans-Himalayan safari was definitely an experience like no other and Ladakh was everything I had expected and more – its a place of start, heart wrenching and stunning beauty. I wrote about the safari (Trans-Himalayan Jeep Safari) and about Leh (Leh). I think I should write about our visit to Nubra Valley – the high altitude desert where we saw double hump camels and the surreal Pangong Tso (lake).
Looking back at the year, it also seems like the year of death… We lost so many well-known personalities from various fields - Just way too many of them. The two deaths that I felt most saddened by were those of Bharatratna Pt. Bhimsen Joshi in Jan 2011 and Yahoo man, Shammi Kapoor in August 2011.
But the one death that affected me the most was that of my grandmother’s. I lost my grandmother in the month of November, but she had been very ill since the beginning of the year. While I (and others around her) knew that it was time for her to go – she was bed ridden for over 1.5 years – and while there were times when we all had felt that God should relieve her from her state… when she did go, it made me (and others) very sad. She had been an important part of my life for a long time – and it was such a positive presence! She was someone who loved unconditionally.
She passed away early morning on 4th of Nov, very peacefully, surrounded by her son, daughters and grandchildren. I miss her so much!! Someone saw an old photograph of hers and said that I looked a little like her. I was so pleased with that! But I wish to be more like her in more ways than just the looks…
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