2010: The Year That Was – Part 2

A self-imposed limit on the size of blog-posts has led to me breaking down extremely lengthy posts into two or more parts, as the occasion demands it.

The story so far documents the highlights of my life and times in the first half of 2010 with the rest to follow here onwards.

July 2010:

• June 2010 made me realize that the feeling of being settled is quite unsettling in itself. The itinerant in me was awakened strongly enough for me to make ad-hoc trips to places that I badly wanted to visit. I made a weekend trip to Kasauli and the mountains once again proved why they are so beautiful, so alluring and so much more better to be in compared to life in the plains.
• Weekend randomness continued as frequent visits to the RSJ office, to some of Delhi’s more popular sights and on the newly opened Gurgaon to Qutab Minar Delhi Metro line kept me preoccupied and sane.
• Hung out at Chandni Chowk enough to realize that the romanticism associated with it is strongly-overrated for a passer-by and that knowing someone on the inside of Delhi 6 might help in relating to all that has been said and written about what a magical place it is.

August 2010:

• The second visit to the ISB campus after graduation. A bunch of us decided to head back to campus to chill out and spend a weekend there. You feel at home, but it isn’t the same when someone else is living in your flat and when other people are calling your space theirs. To everything, there is a season. Ours was over last year.
• The only time that work is mentioned is when the shit hits the fan. So far, I’ve only had office parties and other random things that have made me even think of work outside of the office. Touchwood.
• My fourth trip to Mysore in as many months of living in Gurgaon at the end of August.

September 2010:

• Returned from Mysore, worked for a couple of days and then went ahead to Dharamsala. One of my most memorable trips. Peace and tranquility in the mornings, drinkage and debauchery in the evenings. Five brilliant days that made me feel sad about getting back to work in the hot Delhi plains.
• An email to the ISB alumni mailing list led to the formation of a rock band comprising of the former vocalist, former drummer and former bassist of the ISB class of 2010 rock band, with the new addition being a guitarist whose contact was provided to us by another alumnus. This was the first strongly demonstrated instance of the utility of the old-boy network.
• The full onslaught of monsoon was felt in Gurgaon as people traded in their second car for a kayak during the rainy season. Lots of traffic jams, delays, office shutdowns and a general infrastructure failure seemed to be an ominous precursor to the commonwealth games starting in October.
• Weekend quizzing at MDI Gurgaon commenced, with infrequent visits thanks to a mix of band practice, social commitments and utter laziness.
• The Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri masjid dispute results were announced as I was making my fifth visit to Mysore and the uneventful aftermath of the results were supplemented for by a very eventful evening on the IIMB campus with PGK and co.

October 2010:

• October began with a surprise visit to Mysore. My family got tired of surprise visits and told me not to show up for a while so that they’d be able to appreciate my absence at home. “ Next time you show up, let us know so that we don’t have to cancel our plans to entertain you at home, you idiot! “, or something to that effect.
• The time spent in Gurgaon seemed to be like breaks I was taking in between trips I was making all over the place. The weather improved in October in Delhi and it seemed like Bangalore in the winters.
• I learnt the hard way that Delhi has about two weeks of perfect weather. Otherwise, it is too hot, too cold, too windy, too rainy or too dusty and such. Extreme weather, as I observed, leads to extreme behaviour among people. No wonder the people down south that experience temperate climate seem to be more chilled out on average.
• My long-awaited trip to Israel finally saw something beyond the preliminary purchase of a Lonely Planet as I booked my flight tickets and had my accommodation booked in advance for my three weeks there.
• Went to a resort in Kumarakom, Kerala for a brilliant and highly memorable wedding ceremony. At the risk of waxing eloquent, a massive blogpost would just about begin to do the entire extravaganza some justice.

November 2010:

• Yet another trip to Mysore, this time around for Deepavali. My family became extremely suspicious of what I did in Gurgaon. “You work for a company that has an almost fictitious name, you do something that allows you to pay your loans and make enough time to come back home with irritating regularity. What is the deal? No, really, tell us!” Point taken.
• Wedding season began in earnest in North India. Engagements, marriages,  get-togethers all began in full swing the minute there was a noticeable thaw in temperature.
• My visa application, with all its documents was finally ready as I woke up real early one Friday morning in November to head to Nehru Place to finally submit it. After many years of waiting, I’d finally crossed the Rubicon.

December 2010:

• Another trip, this time around on work, to Mumbai. Flying is fun (for a short while) when you’re carrying a cool brief-case sort of thing and when you’re clad in a suit and there is someone at the arrivals section at the airport with a card which has your name on it. And so on.
• Attended the Jazz utsav (with an All Access Production tag) and saw performances by Larry Carlton, Talvin Singh and others from close quarters. Missed out on watching Meshuggah live thanks to travels.
• I got thrown out of the comfortable residence I was living at and in addition to tackling hectic work schedules, preparing for my Israel trip getting ready for Solstice 2010 (ISB’s annual alumni meet) where the class of 2010 band, Conjoint, was scheduled to perform, I also had to look for new accommodation. Talk about being mentally and physically taxed beyond words.
• A new residence in the second week of December and within three days of moving in, I was off to Hyderabad for Solstice. Meeting old friends was good fun, and performing on-stage yet again with the band reminded me of all the good times we were missing on campus.
• Returned from Hyderabad on the afternoon 19th December and spent 14 hours packing, shopping last minute and getting ready while trying not to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion, only to do so on the Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. The twelve hours in transit in Jordan also gave me enough time to sleep like a baby.
• The last eleven days of a mixed up year that 2010 came out to be were spent in absolute delight, as a long-cherished dream of going to Israel finally came true.
• My longest solo trip for personal pleasure till date, this also resulted in many firsts, including Christmas eve in Bethlehem, Christmas doing the stations of the cross and an entire week spent in Jerusalem, to learn, to explore, to discover and eventually fall in love with the city, more for all its faults and its human side, rather than the eternal and mysterious part that drew me to it in the first place.
• Got two tattoos on two consecutive days. People that know me would know that it is quite out of character for me to do so, but both tattoos will remain relevant in my life until the end of it all. No regrets there. Plus getting it on the left hand can conceal it cleverly with an appropriately worn wrist-watch, so as not to draw attention to it as I go about unleashing corporate whoredom ad infinitum.
• Standing at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem on the morning of the 31st, I was happy that what I’d said to myself last year (next year in Jerusalem) rang true, but was also sad that I’d have to wait until my next trip to come back to this city that I fell in love with.

2010 was a mixed year. But if it all went my way,  it might not have been as memorable as I’d have liked. As Dave Matthews sang,