Yeah, Happy New Year was the top Bollywood grosser movie for SRK in 2014 and a game changer for Deepika Padukone. Coming to the month - its the happiest month across all. December is usually filled with excitement among people of all ages. It's the month of Christmas and New Year thats celebrated all over the world. Irrespective of your belief system, its often the festive vibes in the surroundings that fills the air with happiness. When I was in school, we used to have co-curricular activities starting around the second week of Dec till third week. Those 14 days we participated in various activities, classes used to be cancelled and it used to be just the competitions held during regular school hours. During the third week, we used to assemble in the largest ground of the city, early in the foggy mornings, in order to participate and witness the sports events such as cricket, kho-kho, kabaddi, dodge ball, race, lemon & spoon, sack race, and many more. All students used to assemble in colourful sweaters on the ground, munching on snacks - vada pav, samosas & popcorns. And from 25th Dec, we used to enjoy vacations till Jan 1st. We used to return back to school next day to attend the usual classes and never-ending grind of study and exams. We never realized how precious those days were and how we never got to cherish those moments again later after grade 10th. Post the pre-university course, there were no year end long vacations at all. Life was merely a race towards graduation, later joining a job, working round the clock to learn new skills, to complete the tasks, to get appreciated, to get nice hike, bonus - never realised when it all started circling around money. Every decision was made by quantifying money like traveling onsite, switching jobs or any major milestone, it was all monetary based.
Life had come back to a full circle the moment I accepted a change of project and landed up in Chicago and got to enjoy the perfect work life balance with generous 10 days compulsory long vacation for all employees. I took up a nice hotel room having lake Michigan view in downtown and enjoyed the walks around the street and sunsets on the cruise by the navy pier. Those beautiful sky crappers of the downtown reminded me of the Spiderman movies which was largely shot there, with Tobey Maguire playing the main character swung himself from one architectural building to the other. Dhoom 3 was also shot there, but Bollywood movies tend to be very unrealistic with Amir's character deep in thoughts looking out of the sky-deck, plotting heist at City bank and finally jumping out of a normal way-bridge in downtown out of nowhere while evading the cops. Four years at the USA gave me those beautiful opportunities to go on long vacation during christmas and new year. Google cloud keeps reminding me of memories of all those years every now and then. Its a beautiful travel back in time kind of memory wherein you lose sense of reality and start thinking of wonderful times you cherished. Sounds freshly exhilarating especially if you have nothing better to do. But on a day bustling with so many activities on hand, we need to mute those memories and get back to work. During the years spent back in India, I never had anything better to do than take a roadtrip. Have taken multiple roadtrips all starting from bangalore to Kerala, Coimbatore, TVD. Gathered nice experiences, enjoyed beautiful scenaries surrounding the long winding roads. The best roadtrip was the one back from Ooty, it was so beautiful with the tall pine trees covering the entire area surrounding the winding roads, that gave me the 'Raaz' movie vibes(not the spooky ones). Refreshing road trips are much needed to remove the stress from our life and to fill up with the hope for better, positive future. Employees have hard time closing the laptop to begin the holidays as well as returning back to it post the vacation.
This year end, being part of a residential community, I got a wonderful opportunity to party with the society by grooving to the best Indian music with the usual countdown to new year. I dont believe in attending exotic parties just on the new year day like most do, or even attend concerts or high end hotels by spending a bomb to make the onset of the new year memorable. I rather feel hungover post shelling out money over unnecessary extravaganzas. This new year community party was exactly what I waited as a child, in Mumbai there used to be lot of parties in every societies - usually on the Terrace of each apartment. I lived with my parents in humble buildings that did not have societies or such parties to boast. So I used to look out of the window curiously to peek at other's rooftops that thumped with music played on the loud deck. I wished to be part of such parties, but got no acquaintances or invites. My cousin's building used to host party on terrace , but they used to follow routine religiously- 9:30 pm was their bedtime like most of the families. So they brushed aside the invites like it hardly mattered while I dreamt of being part of one. My parents and relatives used to be rather puzzled - Whats there in those parties, why is that even a big deal?
Over the years, I realised am slowly becoming like them as am constantly worried about my routine, schedules, tasks to complete. But I decided to break the mundane flow and join my community party which turned out to be a good idea. Seeing an energetic crowd, seated in the auditorium I just enjoyed the good music played there, entertained myself till midnight and then slowly departed from the thronging crowd.
Now that the new year has already set in, my mind was boggling with what should be my new year resolutions?! I felt getting up early at the crack of dawn, planning my tasks ahead, taking a pause from hectic schedule once in a while to live and feel the life, to practice and journal gratitudes daily should be some of my resolutions. We need to set up resolutions that make our life easy than setting up fancy ones - this is something I have realised in my 30s.
So goodbye 2024, it was a pleasure living everyday making new memories, learning from experiences and making me wiser for 2025.
Hello 2025, please be kind to me and let me create some more beautiful memories that I can reminisce later!
Source of image: https://phayteaspulse.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/on-beautiful-memories-and-change/
