Hmmmm! A very interesting topic indeed and one that’s gonna require quite some straining of my brain cells to try and remember what the hell I’ve been doing this past one year. It surely has been quite a year and if there is a phrase I can use to describe the year 2006 in brief, it has to be -

 

‘ Year of Travel, Friends, Gadgets and Injuries’

 

I’ve traveled more this one year than probably all my previous years combined! Been to a whole lot of places and with different groups of people. Each trip had its own unique mood, flavour and purpose!

Some places that I visited this year (trips longer than one day) - as far as I can remember are -

• New Delhi | alone | first time to Delhi!
• Varanasi/Allahabad/Sarnath/Gaya/Bodh Gaya/Ayodhya and Secunderabad | with entire family | religious trip
• Coorg | with office colleagues | friend’s wedding
• Munnar/Kumarakom/Alleppy and Trichur in Kerala | with Microsoft Student Partner friends
• Dandeli and Goa | with friends | broke my left leg in the trip and also celebrated my birthday in Goa!
• Tirupati | with parents | drove the car long distance for the first time
• Palani in Tamil Nadu, Alamballam and Trichur in Kerala | with parents | religious trip
• Wonder Valley, Bannerghata Road, Bangalore | with colleagues | team building program from Perot Systems
• Hyderabad | Microsoft Student Partner Meet
• Munnar/Alleppy/Kumarakom/Kochi and Cherai in Kerala | with office friends and other friends | new years eve weekend
• Apart from the above there were many one day trips to Nandi Hills (in the middle of the night!!), Pearl Valley, Wonder La, Emerald Isle etc.

 

This year was not too good for my body and I ended up with quite a few ‘problems’. A fall from a Bullet driven by Rangan who was trying to take a 90 degree turn at some 60 - 70 kmph saw me land hard on my right wrist and an already strained wrist thanks to all the computer usage was bandaged for a long time. Infact I’m yet to recover completely from this and any strenuous action leaves me in pain. Next to get affected were my legs - one after the other. On a trip to Goa while playing with my friends and running around a lot in the beach, I stepped into some depression in the sands below the water (which I couldn’t see) and fell hard twisting my left ankle in the process. I’m not sure if the ankle broke then or later due to all the continued movement and lack of rest - me being on a holiday, but nevertheless it ended up being a serious crack in the ankle and I was bed ridden for almost a month and in a cast for about 6 weeks or so. Less than a week after removing the cast on my left leg, I fell down the steps at my apartment and ended up with a ligament tear and hairline fracture on my right leg. This saw me back on the bed for another couple of weeks. To add to the body pains, all the excessive computer usage and poor posture over the years started to affect my back and neck and what was initially small pains ended up becoming unbearable by the end of the year. Another visit to the doctor and I was diagnosed with the beginning of cervical and lumbar spondilitis, for which I was prescribed some physiotherapy and massage sessions.

 

This year was a good year when it came to meeting old friends and making new ones! Partied like crazy with friends this past year! Almost every weekend I was out partying/clubbing with a different set of friends! Discs, pubs, resorts, reunions, insane bike rides, movies and multiplexes, trips, etc. been there done ‘em all! I also made many new friends at work and elsewhere. People that have become very close to me, very quickly! This was also the year of reconciliation and a few very close friends that I had lost touch with for various reasons are now back in touch! Also thanks to orkut I’ve managed to reach out to nearly all my friends from almost all phases of my life!

 

I’ve also watched and enjoyed a whole lot of movies this year than probably any year before, many with friends and the rest on my comp! The list is very exhaustive and I’d probably need another post to write the whole thing down (IF I can remember all the names, that is!!). If I were to list the good films that I saw in 2006 (not necessarily released in 2006), they would be -

1. Rang De Basanti [Hindi] - Beautiful move and one that went on to inspire so many people across the country to stand up for their rights.
2. Saw I, II and III [English] - Gruesome, Gory and Chilling!
3. Ong Bak [Thai with English subtitles] - Freaking amazing action movie! Tony Ja’s stunts blew me away!
4. Lage Raho Munnabhai [Hindi] - Gandhigiri Zindabad!
5. Crash [English] - Touching movie about racism and how people are affected by it.
6. The Devil Wears Prada [English] - Cute movie!
7. Cars [English]- Vroom Vroom! Good animated movie.
8. Woh Lamhe [Hindi] - Fascinating movie on the life of Parveen Babi
9. Omkara [Hindi] - A great adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello in a village setting
10. Quite a few more…

 

TV shows have really come of age and there have been some great shows released over the past year or so. Two of my favourite TV shows in 2006 were Prison Break and Heroes. Both are on their winter break at present and I’m looking at some other shows with interest, like Dexter, 24 and The O.C. I also enjoyed watching Nach Baliye on Star One, which is probably the only show that I saw on a television itself, the other shows being seen on my computer!

 

I started working in my present project - PHH Mortgage at Perot Systems from Jan 2006 and have learnt a lot from it and my team. Worked in various technologies, some I knew earlier like Java, JSP, VC++ and Oracle and some were new to me, like TIBCO, Informatica and Sybase. The team at office is simply amazing and we have a great set of people in it. Right from the Project Manager to the Team Lead to the Team members, everyone truly rocks and we are really one close unit. I also contributed at the organisational level by being an integral part of the Perot System’s cultural and sports committee - Aakaanksha. Helped organise quite a few events at office and continue to do so, with the most recent being the Christmas and New Year party.

 

Books as usual played a very important part of my life and I read a great many number of books. The major ’theme’ as such for me this year was to read books by Indian authors and/or anything concerning India - Indian fiction/myth/epics/etc. and not surprisingly I found a wealth of great books to read. Ashok Banker, one of my favourite authors, released the final two books of his Ramayana series - Bridge of Rama and King of Ayodhya. Both books were simply brilliant and the epic has come alive in a truly grand and captivating manner through Ashok’s writing. King of Ayodhya ends in a totally unexpected and amazing manner, that only Ashok could have thought of. These two were easily my best books of the year 2006. Other books that I read this year that I really liked were Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini; Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair; Siva: The Siva Purana retold by Ramesh Menon; Water by Bapsi Sidhwa; Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts; and a lot more that I can’t remember at this moment.

 

2006 was also a great year when it came to tech/gadgets and me! I got myself a Creative Zen Vision:M 30 GB Portable Media Player that truly rocks! I got a Canon Powershot S2 IS digital camera and a Sony Ericsson W810i mobile phone thanks to Su! I also got various accessories and lenses for the camera and the player. I got my own domain name (sabarish.net) and hosting space and moved from blogger to wordpress. I also bought myself a Flickr Pro Account! I also became a member of Desicritics, early 2006.

 

All in all 2006 was one helluva year! I had a LOT of fun and lived life to the fullest. Worked hard, but partied harder! :)