2018: The Year That Was

On 31 December 2017 when I went to bed a little before ringing in the New Year, I swore to myself, “Tomorrow I will wake up a changed man with three firm resolutions for the New Year. I didn’t want to share them with Aunty. After all no one wants one’s wife to laugh at you on a New Year morning. I would live by my resolve and let her notice the change in me. And I did, for full one week, before I laid them to rest. There is always a next year.

For reasons best known to them, cough, cold or fever decided to stay away from me, denying me excuses to skip my morning walks. Still I stole a couple, on the pretext of having to leave home early for a function, or an early ODI match… Where there is a will, there is a way.

My quota of outstation trips suffered a set back. We spent half the year in the US, but on record it was just one trip. Second, a few trips got cancelled after booking. One was to Trichy, Kumbakonam and Tanjore temples with our family friend. (Anyway, it is never too late. We leave on the New Year night for the same destination for four days.)

The other was to Hampi. The prominent display of cultural and historical places of Karnataka on the stage at the SFV Rajyotsava, rekindled my desire to visit this UNESCO heritage city, which incidentally has been voted the top Asian travel destination by five of the world’s top travel influencers and bloggers. Soon, six of us (three senior couple, to be precise) made hotel bookings and also arranged with Akram for Innova. Meanwhile, a common friend had to be hospitalized for surgery exactly for those two days.  “The Vijayanagara ruins can wait, but not hospital duty,” we reminded ourselves, and cancelled the trip. (We do it on the third week of January.)

On my birthday the Madeshwara temple remained open throughout the day - for some other reason. So Aunty goaded me to go to the temple, pay obeisance, and stuffed the Rudram-Chamakam book into my hands with a suggestion (read order) to recite the slokas at the temple. I began, and soon the two priests went hither and thither to organize the public address system for me. I politely declined. “Modesty,” the two whispered among themselves. Poor fellows didn’t know that I didn’t want my Rudram-expert friends Navin Kashyap and Muthuraman in SFV to hear on the loudspeaker a version replete with mispronunciations and devoid of diction, and blame the temple authorities.

After a gap of three years, we bade farewell to our spectacles that had become a part of our body. To be honest, the change was ad-based rather than need-based. Usually we patronize an international optical firm, but this time I fell for the Buy-1-Get-1 offer by another company having nearly 150 branches pan India. No doubt they sold good frames and lenses, but as you left the shop you began wondering if you really got a good deal. Moral: Never harbor hopes of outsmarting the seller. The buyer will always be at the receiving end.

This morning we got a call from my elder son in Phoenix. I thought he would brief us on the shops they ransacked for Christmas. Far from it. “Appa, we got a Christmas gift,” he said. “Guess what? A seven-week old puppy.” After great deliberations among the four, they named him Max. Pedigree? Father a German hound, and mother, the Australian version of a German shepherd. Then he showed the cute little brown Max to us on Face Time, with the  two grandsons fighting for turns to cuddle him. Until recently I didn’t have a soft corner for dogs. I avoided them. But now I am not sure. “I think we should visit US sooner than later, and make friends with Max while he is still a baby,” I told Aunty who was only eager to nod. “A welcome addition to the family,” we said in unison.

On that happy note we herald the year 2019.