Highlights of 2016

• Celebrated my daughter’s first birthday. The joy that she brings to our family cannot be explained in words.
  
• Bought a bicycle. With gears (which my bicycle from 90s lacked). Biggest apprehension was that it will be relegated to becoming a very expensive clothesline; fortunately that has not happened yet. I manage about 4-5 rides of 10 km average per week. Been to work 12.5 kms away a few times riding on the cycle.
  
• Reconciled with a close family member. We didn’t speak for years – this year we both matured and started conversing: this has not only released the tension between us; others around us are also much happy.
  
• Took my Mom for a vacation for the first time in 11 years. The long gap is primarily due to the care that my Aunt needs at home – one of us need to be there for her. Fortunately, my niece has grown up and she took care of everything brilliantly allowing my Mom and me to travel without any hassles.
  
• Ran a 10K. I am not a runner at all, but still enrolled for the 10K. Despite the lack of practice and stamina, finished in 1 hr 18 minutes.
  
• Finally, I am pretending as if I never stopped writing on this blog. I am pretty sure, no one is going to read this, but still felt the urge to write after all these years.

Since gaining those inches...

Worked really crazy at work.
Met old friends - and enjoyed their company immensely.
Went to new places to eat and enjoyed most of them.
Saw wonderful movies - "Julie and Julia" and Harry Potter 7.1 being amongst them.

Oh yes, forgot to mention - though not in record breaking time, but still reduced those inches!

Reduce 2 inches in 4 days!

Having you ever seen advertisement from gyms / slimming centers like that? Well, having gained at least 2 inches in the last 4 days, I need their contact details!

Over the last few days, we were celebrating Durga Puja here. And each of those days, I gorged on food in a manner that would suggest Winter is coming and I need to go on hybernation soon! One night, after unsuccessfully visiting several restaurants willing to waive off the usual waiting period of over one hour, we even ate our dinner at 2 a.m. Breakfasts were the only healthy meal of those days.

I hereby swear, that I would eat healthy food, and nothing but healthy food, for the next few days.

Quizzing, revisited

These days, my mom and I enjoy a fun Bangla Quiz show hosted by Saurav Ganguly called "Dadagiri". I had been an avid quizzer in my school and college, even winning a few local quizes. I would also watch Quiz shows like "Bournevita Quiz Contest" regularly. But slowly, over a period of time, my quizzing reflexes have gone down. I realized this a few years ago, when I represented my office in a quiz, and most of the questions were buzzerred (and answered) by other teams before I could remember / work out the answer. It was a horrible feeling!

Thanks to this relatively easy quiz hosted by a very smart Saurav Ganguly, I can sit back and answer quiz questions again. Between my mom and me, we are able to answer most of the questions. She sometimes amazes me by her knowledge about things that I would not expect her to know - like the other day, from a visual clue, she correctly identified a dance form as "B-boying", where I could only guess it was "Hip-hop". She said, "There are benefits of watching dance reality shows, after all". That's the beauty of Quizzing - you never know where you get the knowledge from.

Commonwealth Opening Ceremony

Contradicting my negative comments about organising of the Commonwealth Games in my last post, the opening ceremony was indeed a nice, professional show. I was watching it live at an eatery, and everyone there felt proud that such a beautiful show has been put up by India for the world to see. Hope the events are as professionally managed as well.

India is the third most powerful country in the world

Yet, on one hand we are dealing with Kashmir and making a mess of it, hardly dealing with the Maoists and getting in to a bloody mess. Millions in our country are still below poverty line. Corruption is rampant. We can't even organise a Commonwealth games properly, although the expenditures would suggest this is the best games ever! I could go on and on, but what's the point - we all know what the issues are, don't we?

In three days from now, the entire country would be in total chaos once again, because some politicians felt, and still feel, that fighting over a small piece of land and structure is much more important than all the other issues that we have in our country today.

Incredible India, indeed!

India is the third most powerful country in the world: As per "Global Governance 2025" jointly issued by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) of the US and the European Union's Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)

Need a reason to join a gym?

Aro: I need to go back and join a gym.
Me: You? Gym!?!
Aro: Yeahhh... I need to...
Me: Why???
Aro: I have to buy new trousers otherwise. The neighborhood gym is offering two months package at Rs. 500/- If I buy trousers, they will cost me more... so that's why I am joining a gym!
Me: Makes sense.

Part of the conversation between Aro and me, when he was in town recently. One evening full of non-sense conversations like the one above makes me believe my last post.

P.S: If I know Aro, he has either not joined the Gym or has already quit. Make hay, trouser makers!