New Year Resolutions

I have a large flask brimful with tea and the year-end bumper issue of the Outlook beside me as I prepare to crusade into the New Year.

Two years back [in 2004(Dec)] I had a few recorded (in writing) resolutions and by the end of the year (2005); now do not be surprised; I had met with quite profound measures of delectable success. And then again in (2005) December I had notions about the year ahead, but they were not exactly recorded (in writing). But primarily they were met with, but this time with adequate success. The year that is about to leave by was a didactic in itself for me. I hope I have taken my lessons well. Its time for a new set of aims to aim for! Is it not?

Now this time I am going to make things quite simple for me. I have roughly two things to take care of. That’s all to it, I have decided.

1) I have decided to drink more tea through-out the year.

2) I am going to take the Outlook more seriously. I am going to flick through every page in the coming year and I am going to read everything worth a cent or say even half.

If I do the two above well, I will be successful in life. Surprised!?!?

Hell, why do I keep thinking people are interested in my life so much as to be surprised at my esoteric New Year resolutions!!! I know its all about me and my pursuits and dear reader you don’t give a dime. Fine!

But I need to be aboveboard on not fooling you by being superficial. So much for my peace; and hence the diligence in explaining why the two above are more than superfluous.

i) People who have seen me know me to be a fat guy. No matter whatever I do at the gym, the fat stays. Not that there has not been an 8 kilo downward shift in 2 years time! But still I am flabby and fat. Somewhere in my blog I had told about running on tea until the college canteen happened. So I can run on tea and go hyper, and its part of dieting. Eating less! and tea is very little calories. So 1) above takes care about the pounds Xtra!!

ii) I am a self-proclaimed dilettante at etymology. Its going to be a long journey from dilettante to tyro to novice to rookie to amateur to ‘bring it on’ to expert. I will learn new words and keep refreshing them and who else will help if not Vinod Mehta with his Outlook. So 2) above takes care about ‘words’.

iii) The Outlook is by far the most sensible thing that has happened to the Indian print media. I began my sidekick-ish journalistic career with an opinion expressed therein. Furthering my affection to the Outlook will make me oil my literary gear-levers and it’s a message to the Metro Plus – ‘I am not dead’! It was in the first week of November that I was presumed dead at the office.

iv) Then what about books and question papers, records and rough records, travel and learning. This is where the skeptics start forgetting that caffeine (from tea) is something I am addicted to. In a more positive light it spurs me on to keep reading perspicaciously through the night, to speak cogently through my speeches, to write lucidly through my literary escapades, to travel convivially through the vast lands of my country. Tea stops me from being banal. Tea gets on to my nerves. So again that’s settled.

v) It’s important for an young man like me to keep abreast of the happenings of the world. All the talk about GK and current affairs, debates and elocutions, stage shows and GDs, interviews et al. Outlook is my one-worded answer.

2007 is going to be rocking as long as I keep drinking tea and reading the Outlook. Can life be even more pleasing?

So at the end of the day I feel as long as Vinod Mehta does not choose 2007 to end eleven years of speaking out and the hills of north India and the Ghats do not start complaining about all the tea being grown, I will be Okay and successful.

I conjured a few resolutions this time around as well. Thank God!