Mandatory year end post

This year went in a quicker whizz than every previous year. As I turn back and see, last 9 months had been spent literally inside the confines of four walls. Guess that is how prisoners wade through their sentences. Especially those who serve life terms, I often wonder how come they manage their time. The answer is, the concept of time loses its relevance when the physical space for movement is restricted. Of course, mind can traverse across universes, but body definitely has its limitations. I couldn’t quite recollect anything significant that happened in this year but for the loss of so many well wishers and relatives and family friends. To be honest working from home doesn’t make much different for my lifestyle. Reading, watching movies, spending time at home are the only necessities for me. This year was good from the variety of books that were recommended. The most recent being “When Nietzsche wept”, “Rise and fall of third Reich”. Neither of which I’ve completed and would probably take into the next year. Sapiens Deux went from being dark to pitch dark in content and couldn’t proceed beyond half of it. Career wise it was funny, reminding that nothing changes even after 20 years. Recent couple of incidents made me realize again that someone somewhere in the universe goes through similar events as us and at times have different thought process towards tackling things. And when they happen to be in our communication circle and reach out to us offering guidance, it re-emphasizes the belief that, the universe does respond to us for queries asked with absolute clarity. I happened to spend a good part of this year with my kid and that makes me more worried about how he will cope up when schools re-open. He has to get accustomed to sitting in one place for 6 hours which is going to be Herculean to say the least!! I got to learn a few things about myself and how different I was as a kid while following him. I am yet to crack the code as to how my parents disciplined me and lead me into becoming the conformist that I am now. If at all this year has taught anything it is on the expectations. Guess having the right expectations is the key to everything – happiness, life and everything else under the sun. With new strains of virus already shaping up, 2021 seems to be version 2.0 of this year. But having spent a good part of it on understanding life in times of pandemic, hopefully we should’ve learnt our lesson. If the mutant version is anything like covid-19, if people don’t follow stricter rules of lockdown and sacrifice, we are set for another major overhaul of population reduction for second year running. Hope it doesn’t live up to its bad expectation. The lasting effects of the pandemic have resulted in drastic changes on the education setup that had long been overdue. Be it at kindergarten level or graduate, it has impacted the existing setup significantly and has tested it to the extent possible that all the vulnerabilities are waking up. Students are all set for a whole new experience on studying and learning. Guess this virus would turn out to be the necessary kick that was needed to shake up the rotting system and hope the right kind of solutions are implemented. For an year that had kept people indoors mostly, 2020 got blamed for every calamity that went by in cricket, be it Dhoni’s retirement or India’s recent low score in Adelaide. Whether 2021 will revert to old normal or make the new normal most normal, only time will tell. See you all on the other side.