After having seen and read a few year-enders and a decade-ending ones , I feel I deserve to have one of my own. What makes this decade special for me is the fact this is the first decade that I can remember clearly ... In the previous decade , I was born , suffered the shock of a lifetime : an electric shock to be precise , had my leg fractured, and ironically that was my lovely childhood. So the decade 1990-1999 was all about oblivion for me .
Coming back to 2000-2009, the decade remains crystal clear in my memory for reasons I try to laborate below, I try to recollect most of the things yet I may miss out on a lot of things , maybe because I never tried to remember or understand them for their complexity or the measure of wisdom that it would take to write about them. This article/post does not contain news from around the world. Basically , this is an account of things that seemed significant to me. The notable feature is that I have grown up in these 10 years from a small child to an adolescent to a youth, so it may contain varied pieces of information . So here goes 2000-2009 as swiftly as the decade itself.
The first thing I remember of year 2000 was that of the world coming to an end, and yes the world, as far as I was concerned, had started showing the signs with news coming in everyday of computers falling to prey to the Y2K virus. A dangerous and intriguing name like "Y2K" , I feel, would scare the hell out of a 9 or 10 year old , but I was "courageous" enough to follow the news only to find out that it was more than tackled , and in any way could not bring an end to the world. 2001 brought out the "glamour" of the terror groups with Osama-bin-Laden carrying out the twin tower explosions. The people around the world stuck to their television sets watching the first "mega terrorist-event" of the decade and Al Qaida , Laskar-e-Taiba became household names. Household not in the sense that people named their loved ones or possessions as LeT or something but I do remember one of my friends Usama whom everybody started calling Osama , funnily. I guess these activities dont deserve to be written more about. On a personal note , 2001 marked the begining of a good academic career at school for me.
2002 , another unfortunate year for India as the communal riots in Gujarat shatter not only the window panes of the shops in the area but also the belief of people in one another. For reasons mentioned before , I refrain to get into the details. And then 2002 was unfortunate for all of us in Kanpur too ... the company my father was working with announced (or rather was forced upon), a closure. Life in Kanpur was certainly coming to an end. It better had been a few years earlier , I thought.
2003 saw us shifting to Silvassa , the place at first seemed fine with greenery around , decent crowd and a few other reasons I fail to recollect now. Nothing else in 2003 do I feel significant enough to write about . Quite a peaceful year indeed !
The consequent years too had nothing of much importance to me , except that these were the years that shaped up how and what I am , my likes and dislikes , taste for books, music and food of course, my beliefs and convictions and a few more things I know nobody's interested in knowing.
2008 , I appeared for the standard 10 board exams , scored decently , less than how much I had expected but then I guess you dont get everyting you desire. This was also the year of the infamous terrorist seige in Mumbai. And yes , I forgot to mention that these terrorists did continue their strike all these 10 years in different parts of the world and the Sun rose in East and set in West everyday. You dont need to mention that , do you ?
2009 I feel had been very demanding from the academic point of view with me being in the last year at school . You dont need to mention the ambition, pressure , thoughts , emotions of joy and sorrow that accompany.
Ending as it all started ,Global Warming, the promos, trailers and the english film 2012 itself, as the year ended, had everything in them to catch the fantasy of the people and scare them of a catastrophic end to the world in 2012 or later . 2012 because the Mayan calender ends that year . I dont know about the Mayan calender , but my calender ends today 31st Dec , 2009 and I look forward to tomorrow ...
"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice ..." -- T.S. Eliot
