This new year, I am not reminiscing on just the past year. I'm looking back at the journey of my life in the last ten years. Interesting, isn't it, to see how far we have come in life?

All of us remember where we were when year 2000 began. Just like man landing on the moon, Rajiv Gandhi's assasination and the terrorist attacks on New York & Mumbai, it was one of those moments etched forever in the collective consciousness of people. It was the beginning of a millennium. A millennium that everyone looked forward to with new hopes and dreams. It was Y2K ¹, you bum! It was cool. Undoubtedly.

I was a thin, shy, pimple-faced kid entering his teenage years. I was a fan of Young Times, Boyzone, Knight Rider, Star Trek and The X Files. Sachin & Shah Rukh Khan were Gods. Today, ten years on, Young Times doesn't exist any more. I'm too far off to read it even if it did. My taste in music has changed. Some things haven't changed though. I've to admit that I'm still thin, a li'l shy (I prefer introvert) and from time to time I still do get pimples (arrrghh). I love Knight Rider, Star Trek and The X Files. Sachin & Shah Rukh are still Gods (but of lesser stature, of course).

Wait... That doesn't mean I haven't changed. For me, the decade spanned two countries, five cities, two schools, one college, two jobs, a couple of achievements and several heartbreaks. Joy, grief, excitement, frustration, thrill and boredom. I've seen the highs and lows of life. It was like riding a wave ² ! I should be called a fool if I say that I haven't changed. Here's a quick summary of the years gone by:

2000

Sharjah. Yes, it's that city where cricket used to be played. I had been one of those matches too ³. Al Wahda Street. One of the busiest in Emirates. You should have seen the pile-ups! Bin Laden Building. Mothercat Round-about. Star Cineplex (a 3-screen multiplex) at less than 500m away. That place was awesome!

In school, 9-D under Shareef Sir. All the devils and misfits in one class. I was the (ashamed to admit it) topper. Mookilla rajyathe muri-mookan rajavu (Half-nosed king of a nose-less country). Met Jib, my best buddy for the next few years. Failed in a Math test horribly and started private tuitions with Sajeev Sir.

2001

Moved to Dubai. Creek-side park and a 1.5hr school bus ride with kids from Kindergarten.

In school, 10-D with the same devils and misfits. Loved it. 30 guys doing laps around the football ground for one guy calling the Headmaster a chicken. That sorta stuff.

MSN Messenger & Hotmail. Bruce Lee Karate Center that had nothing to do with either Bruce Lee or Karate. Pseudopoetry. Friends. white1dove5, my amazing penpal, where art thou, my friend?

Dil Chahta Hai. Best Hindi movie. Ever.

2002

Board exams and misadventures. Scrapbooks. Farewell. Dad decided to send me off to India and off I went. Angry yet helpless. I knew I'd miss Bikram Vohra ⁴ among several other things.

New home. Own home. Dream come true for Dad & Mom.

Boys' school and Engineering Entrance coaching in an institute where girls ain't supposed to be talked to. Pathetic Malayalam. I struggled like a fish out of a pond. YA / Yousuf Ali at the institute and Alosius (teachers) at school pushed me hard. Studied hard as if there was nothing else to do. Actually, there was nothing else to do.

2003

Better than the previous year. I had fixed my broken Malayalam but the guys could still find enough bloopers to poke fun at. Even today, people still do. Some things never change, do they? Heh.

When I said that '03 was better, I meant that I socialized better. More friends. I was still a nerd though. I studied hard but the competition was tough.

2004

Board and Engineering Entrance exams. Scrapbooks. Farewell. Not too emotional this time though. I worked hard for the exams but the competition beat me. Fair and square. Settled for CUSAT. In retrospect, a good great decision.

My coach gets married. Family = 4 + 1 = 5.

Driver's licence. Spineless driver.

Moved to Cochin. Hostel. Ragging. Scared to death. Thank God it was Ramadan when I joined. I was spared most of the time 'coz of it. SFI and the first taste of student politics. Forced to participate in a strike by seniors. It was fun though. We gheraoed the Vice Chancellor. First year at college was about fear, homesickness and innocence.

2005

Second year at college. I smelt freedom. Shreyas ⁴ became our HQ. Our Houston. Road trips, buffet dinners and night-outs on the day before exams, Shreyas was the place to be.

First taste of INSPIRE ⁵. I was hooked. Amazing experience and the best was yet to come. Bullets in my CV.

Screws — a bunch of guys who bonded together under the sentiment that their lives were screwed up and that they deserved better.

<Anne Frank>

2006

Third year. Things began to get awesome. Up for anything but academics. Mom shifts to Cochin and I go to college in a car. I become a better driver.

Second INSPIRE — More responsibilities, more hard work and more fun. Several more things that ended up in my CV. In the end, I was left in total awe of Dias and others like him.

Placements — Rejection and depression at first. I never made it past the first round of the first company that came to our college for placements. Big blow to the over-confident, egoistic me. Felt cheated and reacted in a very immature way. Mistake. I regret it even now. But redemption came pretty soon.

2007

More masti. More mazaak.

Third INSPIRE — Huge effort. In the end, I could only do around 5% of what Dias did the previous year. But felt happy though. I was a human after all. The CV got crowded.

The car took a beating. After Arts and Inspire, the car acquired dents and scratches but won the gratitude of many. I earned several nicknames too.

A trip never to be forgotten. 4 guys and a red Swift. Vagamon. Blissful getaway.

2008

Hoganakkel → Ooty → Wynad. The college tour.

Final exams and misadventures. Scrapbooks. Farewell. Durbar Hall. Tears, hugs and promises.

</Anne Frank>

Tons & tons of things left to be said about college. Things that could fill several volumes, things that cannot be summarized and things better left untold.

College ends. Blink. First job. Catapulted into a career straight out of college. Moved to Bangalore. I was excited at the prospects that the big city brought and at the money and respect that a job brings to you. The training period was tough but I was a tough cookie too. I had enough C++ and Unix-fu to sail through. I started work soon. Inspite of the relatively unknown technology and inexperience of a fresher, I gelled in quickly. I was excited about the future.

3.5 months of shortlived excitement. University result. Fail. Fired. That's all my first job was meant to be. I bid adieu to Bangalore with a promise to myself that I will return. I packed my bags and returned to CUSAT. I had unfinished business.

2009

Shit had happened. I lost all self-respect, got frustrated and was usually helpless. Nothing I did could get me out of the rut. I screwed up GMAT too.

Wipro called and it was like I got a new purpose in life. A point to prove. I returned to Bangalore and thus fulfilling the promise I had made the previous year. I made a new one — "This is your last chance. Don't screw it up. Show 'em what you got."

I think I'm doing OK.

Then I finally found the reason why shit happened. Then again may be not. Meanwhile, life moved on. New place to live in, new friends, old friends, new faces, old faces and new challenges.

and now...

It's 2010. The start of another year and another decade. Let's see where this one leads to.

¹ The Y2K problem and the news/hype surrounding it was something I keenly followed during those times. In the end, I was disappointed at the no-show. The Russian nuclear missiles did not misfire to cause nuclear annihilation, airplanes did not fall off from the sky, bank ATMs did not quit on you or throw out wads of cash on to the streets... In short, nothing catastrophic happened. May be it was because of all the wise software engineers who toiled it out fixing the dates in all of the legacy code. Aaahh... Surely, software engineers saved the world!

² Not to be confused with Google Wave.

³ In 1998 though. On April 24th, Sachin Tendulkar's birthday. The day India thrashed Australia. The day Tendulkar thrashed Warne. Sublime innings. More details here.

⁴ Bikram Vohra wrote a column Reading Between The Lines for City Times, a supplement of Khaleej Times. A witty, sarcastic take on some of the otherwise mundane things in life.

⁴ Six friends moved into first floor of a house near CUSAT campus. In due course of time, it became the command center for activities for the Computer Science Division. Honorary Orkut community which is kinda inactive now.

⁵ INSPIRE is one of the largest techno-cultural fest organized annually by the students of Compu... You get the drift, right?

PS: I'm usually very particular about grammar and readability but this post has both of them chucked out of the window for brevity (yet it's a very lengthy post). Like I said, the post isn't very readable and you may not understand all or anything of what I wrote about. That's 'coz each short ungrammatical sentence is a story in itself. Most of you might not have read the whole thing. That's okay. I understand. But if you did, I love you, my friend. I absolutely worship you!

Yes, fartingpen, I was inspired by you. Like always, you rock!