At times one wonders, why are these nations separate in the first place. That debate aside for the moment, what is it that makes us hate people? There are enough problems around us to submerge ourselves in and deal with, but we forget all that is around us and pay more attention to what someone on a TV channel is telling us.

Look at what we are missing out on, I am a hardcore cricket fan, and I will speak for myself, that I miss watching the fast bowlers from across the border playing in our IPL

“Why is it so profoundly satisfying to lose one’s identity to one’s sons?”, I asked Soumya one sunny afternoon as we took a stroll down West Park.” I feel so good every time someone stops and praises Timmy or Tot and asks us if ‘we are Timmy and Tot’s parents?’, don’t you find this strange or do you feel the same way?”
Strange? Not at all Manjula, I feel much the same way. Life flows in a continuum. A new generation always out seats the former…

How I wish I spoke
How I wish I cared
How I wish this was not just a wish
How I wish I had known

You still are my angel
My darling sweetheart
This body so blue
A tear drop and a scar

Ask someone in India today, “What is the easiest way to make a lot of money?” and you might get any one of the following answers:

Become an Entrepreneur ,
Get an degree from an IIM and join the corporate world,
Start a web based company ,
Invest in the Market, etc., etc.

One answer you might not get, but which, it seems, is the right answer today is:

I am not sure whether it was Manjula or Pratima, Subir’s wife, who had had this brain wave when we were wondering how to rally the troops: look in the telephone directory, wouldn’t that be the most obvious place where we would find the details of Bengali’s or Indian’s resident in and around Wolverhampton? Wouldn’t they be the obvious choice for us to reach out to in search of donations, volunteers, attendees and ambassadors of our programme?

But what is the reason behind this dysfunctional mindset?

The answer, I believe, is fear. Everyone is afraid.

The politician is afraid that whatever he might do, he might not get a second term, so he wants to amass as much wealth as he can. He is afraid that the other party might malign his image, so he digs deep to find dirt on other politicians.

Well, oh well, another year has passed us by and we hardly realized it. There were many resolutions made, some kept, most forgotten, and many postponed for the coming year. Amidst all this there were certain moments this year that were worth remembering. Some moments that touched us, inspired us, and some that we wished never happened. I am writing my ten such moments here, so get ready to relive bits of 2009 with me.

He looked at his watch. It said 3:00 am. He was constantly humming songs and talking to himself to keep himself awake, and to beat the cold. It was tough sitting there for four hours on the trot. His hands and feet were going numb, and he was in desperate need of a hot cup of coffee, but the guy selling it was all sold out. He put his hand into his pocket and dug out one – last – piece of chewing gum and started chewing on it. His eyes were droopy, his chest a bit congested, and his head was pounding with nervous excitement.

Before the raging hormones could take control over the mind or the heart, some of us had to move on to other parts of the city. The moving away changed a lot. I moved away from the warm comfort of the familiar faces and moved into a colder para which offered more of acquaintances and less of friends. Once the initial barrage of ‘we all miss you’ letters had died down, I settled down for the occasional birthday or season’s greetings. And after a while, they too became rare. Time had come for the ‘blind alley and its gang’ to fade from my memory.

I can still remember, as a kid, when I started learning the rules of the game called cricket, I saw a young, lean, kid moving around with the likes of Kapil Dev on his tour to Pakistan. I was learning the game, and it was nice to see a kid of nearly my height playing for the country – at that age it made me feel that even we could play with the so called “season ball”. Watching the likes of Waquar, Wasim and Imran Khan bowl bouncers to this kid, and the determination of this kid to go on and score a fifty against them, was just a start.