Welcome 2011

Hope is the key to a new year

My niece had a project on the life of Helen Keller and luckily I got to study her book . Helen Keller was an extra ordinary women who in spite of being blind and deaf, who against overwhelming odds , grew into a highly intelligent and sensitive woman who wrote, spoke, and labored incessantly for the betterment of others. A symbol of triumph over adversity she showed the world the power of faith and determination. She will be long remembered in the histor of our time and of times to come. While going through her book I came across one of her quotes, “It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui” this was enough for me to think about the new year resolutions which many of us still believe in. When I think of our lives I see almost everyone complaining about their Jobs, their future, studies, rich -poor and never think about others who have absolutely nothing to fall back upon.

Like every year, new year is here. Yes, that time of year is upon us again. For people who believe in it, plan so much . We usually on January 1, resolve to be good to everyone including ourselves. We'll eat healthier, we'll make our lifestyles more sustainable, we'll be more restrained, we all hope that this year will be better then the previous one, but looking back I am sure many of you will agree that 2011 has its own excess baggage from the previous years. So much has happened around the world in 2010 that it will take one full book to write. In Kashmir its not only sad but painful to recall the events that unfolded. Today’s kashmir is synonymous to strikes , curfews and bloodshed . Not a day goes by when we don’t hear stories as such. It’s difficult to understand the psyche of an average person what he really wants. From observing a total shutdown for 4 months to speaking overwhelmingly against it. The human values don’t matter now, privacy is a thing of past. Only with little amazement we ask each other “ How many lives have we lost today”. Inspite of knowing that some agencies are watching over us , listening to our conversation, taping our phone , hacking our emails we just live our lives.

New Year has always been a time for looking back to the past, and more importantly, forward to the coming year. It's a time to reflect on the changes we want or need to make and resolve to follow through on those changes. So on a lighter note, I remember when I was too young my parents would tell me that whatever you do on the first day of the year will reflect upon the whole year, so I would gladly do a few things like giving some money in charity, buying new clothes, opening my text books hoping to study well, eating chocolates until I decided to lose some extra kilo’s and do whole lot of things that the English dictionary calls “ positive” . I continue to follow my established practice but its just that the desperation to have a better life is much higher then it ever was when we were young school going kids and the toughest part of our lives was our homework. This reminds me of my childhood, I remember we had this wonderful Kashmiri Pandit teacher who would tutor us everyday after school, me and my brothers would stand on the window at exact 5 in the afternoon praying to god that he doesn’t show up and when god would think otherwise and the teacher would finally appear our hearts would sink. The first thing he would do is to get “soy” the kashmiri word for Poison Ivy or nettles, although it looks funny now but so scary was the teacher that we would make it a point that our home work is complete even before he would step in. Those were the days and I miss them with every passing day and I am sure many others out there would do too .

Carrying on the second important thing about the new year is that I never start it with a grudge so I’ll contact people who I had arguments with and apologize if I think I offended the other person. It makes you feel way too better, Try it and I am sure you will feel the satisfaction. Make sure you’re moving into the new year with a clean conscience. The gist of this point is simple: don’t carry any negative emotional baggage over to the New Year. We are people of enormous potential. Nothing is impossible in the new year if you have the heart for it. What you want is to make it happen and start rolling.

Enough already with the resolutions! I’m sure you've been there, done that, got things working and sometimes if it still doesn’t work, that is not the end of the world. We should know that no matter how hard it is , no matter how difficult it seems, there is always light at the end of every tunnel. We should know that every one in this world is here for a purpose. It is our world and its only us who can and should make it a better place to live in. Like someone rightly said and I would like to repeat those three words to myself: glass half full. Just to remind myself to be grateful for everything I have. That’s what will count in 2011 and the many more years to come. As i see the snow capped mountains around me I only hope that the new year brings us our share of much needed snow. Here is me wishing you all a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2011.

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Jan/2/welcome-2011-1.asp