Mutlu yıllar

A bit belated, but still - new year wishes. Personally, I am just wishing (hoping, what have you) that 2009 is a more eventful and happier year than last. I don't really have much to show for 2008 - it was mostly rather mind numbingly dull. My reading has pretty much gone down the drain. I still have a stack of books that I bought and never got down to reading. Perhaps it is apt that my favourite book out of the few I read last year was Joseph O'Neill's Netherland. Saw a lot of movies - most of which I never wrote about. Anyway, my applications have all been submitted now. I had hoped that once they were done I would be a little less harried but the wait is immensely painful. I had an awful nightmare about the whole thing a few days back - silly, but still too scary a thought to relive.

The year will bring some change in scenery at any rate. I am shifting back to India - in all probability to Chennai for a few months with work, and then lets see. I haven't been in more than a decade and have only the haziest memories of the place - strangely enough I vividly remember Kodaikanal, Madurai and other places in Tamil Nadu - but I do hope to make the most of it. So, basically travel about and take photographs on the weekends. And I am looking forward to the food very much - if there's one thing I would be happy eating everyday for the rest of my life it would be sambhar, rice and chutney. Along with thoran, ideally.

I do however have to pack up - bag and baggage - and five years of stuff to wind up and shift countries isn't very pleasant. Just the thought of it is tiring but I have started sorting through stuff and will start sending my books - most of my stuff, really - soon. I am also traveling to Java later this month - the last few days have been reading up for that - and I am suitably excited. And apart from that the new year also got off to a surprisingly nice start - the people at the New Yorker sent me a 2009 diary (with my name embossed!!!) - causing much delight, since I hadn't actually ordered any such thing. (Just registered my hard drive.) Still, I am hoping its a good beginning to what will be a good year.