The year that went by !

I’ve always had a yearning to record my experiences and go through them at a later point of time. Analyzing how a few things changed over the course of time and on the contrary, how time hasn’t taken a toll on the other few, leaves me dumbfounded. Having procrastinated for long, I decided to maintain a journal and write something frequently. Having done that over the last few weeks, I plan to pen down a few things as blog posts.

Well, what to start with is always a bone of contention. After wrecking my head for some time, dilly-dallying about a couple of options and looking at my journal, I zeroed on the thought of summarizing my life since I had moved to Coimbatore. Infact the last 14 months where the word Year meant Financial Year rather than the default meaning of Calendar year. All thanks to the Indirect Taxation which is now my bread and butter. This period was a complete respite after years of failure, turmoil, struggle, criticism, endless moral policing, and unsolicited, irrational advices tendered by every Tom, Dick and Harry.

My mind was preoccupied with a feeling of uncertainty whether I’d be able to cope up with anomalies after years of stagnation. And looking back, these are some of the things that standout while I reminisce the last 14 months.

• Living an independent life was a dream come true. Not just financially but on all fronts like managing everything at home, cooking on a daily basis, doing household chores over the weekend etc. Though all this drained me out completely, the satisfaction when the room looked sparkling clean was priceless. I looked forward to walk the talk on taking up the responsibilities and see where I stand. I’m glad I had come a long way. The salubrious climate & respectful Tamil dialect have made me feel that choosing Coimbatore was a wise decision. And thanks to Raj uncle for going out of his way to make me feel comfortable and providing amenities that I wouldn’t have even dreamt of

• Getting an insight into the working style of the Government. This is a rather subjective one and depended on a lot of parameters like the types of people I worked with, kind of work, the repercussions of making a blunder accidentally and deliberately, the pace at which things happen, the evident loopholes, playing mind games etc. to name a few. Despite completing an year of service, I’m yet to receive my induction training and know the nuances and nitty gritties of the law in a professional manner

• I added one more to the list of languages I knew (with varied fluency). Learning Tamil was a huge advantage and the timing was spot on. Having heard about how every signboard would be only in Tamil, I made an effort to learn the alphabet a week before I came here. And the same signboards that were despised, helped me practice reading and writing even before I could converse. The field office made me replace English with Tamil as the language of conversation. As the year ended, I could even decipher Malayalam to an extent that helped me get around Kerala without having to ask people for assistance. I feel delighted about the fact that my love for learning new languages didn’t die a silent death

• I could eat vegetables for 6 days a week and not resent it. This is a big thing for a person like me who used to gorge on non-vegetarian food atleast for one meal a day and almost never had vegetarian food at the restaurants. And thanks to the meagre portions of food served here, my appetite took a beating for the good

• My favourite part was getting to know different people at workplace and elsewhere. From super cool bosses to clingy and irksome seniors/colleagues, selfish motives to unexpected succour, relentless critics to people who existed only as flesh, I’ve witnessed complete diversity. However, luck was on my side and nothing’s been detrimental so far. I’m thankful for having met a few folks who I’m sure would remain as good friends

• Coming to travel, I couldn’t materialize all my plans though I could make a few solo trips and enjoyed a wing reunion rewinding the college days. And counting the number of hours I spent travelling, it was almost a mind boggling one full month, thanks to the long train journey home and back every month end

• Preparation for other exams went downhill especially after being posted to the field office. Not because the work was hectic but that I couldn’t manage my time wisely or worse I never made an attempt to rectify the same

• Picking up calligraphy as a hobby (though it’s early to call it one) was a stress buster at times. Also having tried my hand at a couple of doodles which turned out good gave me the motivation to pursue it further

Well, there are a few other things too but they are either trivial or I’d better keep them to myself. But after twists and turns every year and with me contemplating endlessly only to feel pathetic later on, this year made me heave a sigh of relief. A normal year it might seem but for me it was worth calling it extraordinary. And the key takeaways from the year would be that I could control my anger during many instances (Coimbatore has taught me patience). I hardly worried about a few things that didn’t go as expected which would’ve otherwise been deleterious. I became more open minded in accepting my faults and had taken a pragmatic approach in carrying out my tasks. I’m sure the next few months will be full of surprises. All the calmness now makes me feel like the silence before an apocalypse kicks in.

WELL, BRING IT ON. YOU’RE BEING MISSED!