2009 is here!

On a holiday, I wake up early and go for my long brisk walk in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP). On working days, I go in the evenings, to a quiet and lonely area called Abhinav Nagar, so that I can walk brisk safely. On the first day of 2009, I had the opportunity to visit the SGNP, being a holiday. On the way, I found some dogs cuddled together and sleeping in the cold, eventful morning, blissfully unaware of the arrival of the new year. It wouldn’t matter to the animals, insects, trees and birds that would greet me at the park, as always. This man-made phenomenon is peculiar to human beings – dividing time by years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds, keeping track of them all! We then, foolishly believe that, since we have developed the concept of time, we can manage it too!

Time Management! Can anyone manage time? Does it not manage itself? What one needs to manage is oneself with respect to time. After one attends a seminar on “Time Management”, one just puts the ideas to sleep and don’t take any of the advice that “experts” dole out there. No one needs advice. That is why it is given away so freely – because no one can use it anyway! I try not to give advice. I don’t necessarily succeed, though. If any of my earlier posts seemed like advice, they were not intended to be.

Human beings have also given birth to the concept of a new year resolution. I have never been able to keep my resolutions longer than a week. So one year, I resolved not to make one ever again. That is the only one I could keep for decades! I began walking regularly last year – not as a new year’s resolution. This was as an outcome of a brief illness forcing me to have some medical tests done. The medical report revealed that my cholesterol/triglycerides were on the higher side! It worked! More than the tons of advice, I got; better than a new year’s resolution. Events like illnesses, medical reports, failing health are god’s signal to tell us to take it easy, take care and look after ourselves. He has His ways of telling us!

The last year was also when I revived my writing habit. I got the idea about the article “Middle Man”, (which got published in the Indian Express), while on my brisk walk. In fact, most of the ideas for my articles and posts have come to me while I walk alone. I will walk even if my triglycerides, gets back in the acceptable range. I am saying this so that you don’t have to pray for it to remain up there to enjoy my posts! How stupid of me to assume you are enjoying and hoping I would continue to write! There is abundant human stupidity inside me, that you will read about in my future whatnonsanz posts, disguised as “artickles”. My decision in 2008, to write about observational humor, was one such act. I wanted to get HIGH in my own way – get Headlong Into Good Humour!

Time for some quiz:
Q. What is common between a software engineer, a beggar and a writer?
A. They all need a platform! - I found mine last year @ Blogger!
I must thank Blogger for providing me that platform, fellow-bloggers, friends and relatives, for their kind and encouraging comments from time to time.

My feedburner tally reads 50 today! Add another 300+ friends of the Tandon Group and relatives and friends, who tell me that they wait for the next post.
Maybe people like to read my nonsanz, I tell myself.

In my last post, I had written about how difficult it is to Get Out of D’s habits. While walking back, I thought of two more GOODs that we need in 2009. GOOD Politics – Get Out Of Divisive Politics and GOOD Governance - Get Out Of Devious Governance.

Another thought that came to my mind was that though it is very difficult to get out of habits, it is only bad habits that we find difficult to get out of. Amazingly, it is equally difficult to get into good habits. Get HIGH, again – Get Headlong Into Good Habits! Last year, my attempts to get into pranayams a breathing technique, meditation, regular exercise, that I had learnt in the Siddha Samadhi Yoga - SSY program, have been partially successful. I have been regular – regularly irregular - the intensity of this regularity needs to increase, I mean. Like all beginnings, mine have been small too.

As I was leaving the SGNP on the 1st of January 2009, I could witness the first sunrise of the year. Did the Sun know that human beings had marked its movements to measure their own time, their days of the years? Was the sun equally enthusiastic and hopeful about its journey in the new year, as we were? Why would it, when it would do so for eternity? New years are only for us mortals, the fortunate, enlightened ones!