The Chicago Skyline
The east sky turns pink; it’s the first dawn of a new year. The last sunset of the previous year wasn’t so different, you know, like something special to signify the end of a time. It was normal, like any other day, yet along with it went a whole year, time that won’t be back ever again.Is it not weird though, all these man made special dates? To give a day that you can’t tell apart from any other day such a high stature whereas some truly significant days go unheeded? For example, the day when it rained ice and cute icicles hung from trees which when touched clung to your skin? I felt happier then, than when the Christmas Eve dinner party was a success. But yet I remember that the dinner was on Christmas Eve but I can’t remember the day when it had rained ice! But I get it. These days exist to force people to take a breather from the back breaking journey of the daily life. To relish the joy of existence and not merely take it for granted. And so before I forget, Happy New Year everyone. Don't waste it whimpering over don't-haves and have-to-dos. They can wait. For now, sit back, relax and have a piece of warm cake maybe. It’s customary that on a New Year’s Day, you count the blessings the last year had brought in and then pray for the year ahead. I am lucky I get to do it twice in 12 months! Once the English New Year in January and then the Bengali New Year in April. On both of these days we have been counting our blessings and praying since we were children. So this New Year, when I started to review how my last year had been, a new thought struck me: I could remember things that made me happy, but couldn’t recollect how I was feeling at that very time! Was I happy (of course I was), but how happy was I? How did I express my feeling then? Did I just smile or was I elated? What went on around me then? I just couldn’t remember! When I went back another year, I could hardly remember the perks of my daily life! Only the flat blur of routine and the occasional blasts that disrupted it!And if this happens in such short time, then how will it be in, say, 5 years? And then it struck me! That’s precisely why people kept journals! Noting everything, documenting mundane details so that it could be looked back and relived! I used to be a strange kid who preferred to be left alone, in a corner of the room, where I could hunch and read a book or maybe scribble notes - writing down everything that was happening around along with what I was feeling about them. But somehow it felt apart, don’t remember when though! Probably I grew up!
I called my mom up, made her go through my junk pile in my abandoned room in my home and come up with those ruled notebooks where I had written in letters as big as coat buttons, about my daily experiences! As mom read them over phone, we laughed and we choked together sometimes: how differently I perceived things in my childhood innocence! Yet it was great! Those green notebooks gave me a new insight, of me! Inevitably I am tempted, once again, to keep a journal. To document my days here, however small and insignificant they might be! To write about the weird pony-tailed father of the two year old boy or the strange appearance of a seagull in the frozen lake outside (can a bird get lost?)! Although it’s been 19 years (the last entry dates 9th March 1995, that's primary school!), it’s never too late! And who knows, twenty years down the line, just like now, it would be so fantastic to know a retro me, who I forgot ever existed or maybe an explanation of how I came to be!And thus my New Year resolution is to keep records – loads and loads of them. Web logs wouldn’t do, because for a nostalgia sucker like me nothing comes close to a real pen and handmade paper. Bit old school – but that’s how I am.So yeah! That’s it! Little weird for a resolution, I know. But it will have to do. Oh, btw, what’s yours? What did YOU decide to do this year? Love,
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Riot of Random
