2005

This past year was one of those which see you experience more, learn more,.... grow more.

It started with beginning to experience what was to be the most fulfilling, delightful, ecstatic yet painful emotions i had ever experienced. It all began one fine late night with a chat; A stranger, a thrill of search, unanswered questions, an urge to fill the void - all contributing to venture on the path. The path that was to be laid with roses, hiding all thorns that were a part of the package. Soon, that voice, those ideas, that pain, that promise, all started to appear so wonderful, so romantic. The twinkle in the eye, the sweet smile, the child-like look, the non-stop banter... i had met my darling.

Thank goodness I met him after i had already done my preparations for interviews. And so I appeared for a couple of companies recruiting on campus, and got through mine without much headache. But thereafter, it was him and nothing else. Regular friends were sidelined, fun at parties compromised, studies and projects completed with utter disinterest... so much so that the final semester examinations were literally scraped through by me.

His was a new world for me. A world i hadn't planned to become so integral a part of. A world characterised by duplicity, casual sex and surprisingly, a search for love, everywhere, without fail. I met new people, new friends.

Bangalore happened. Staying alone after a while. Not too much a problem, i still manage to survive like that with quite a certain degree of success.

The first three months here were characterised by discovering what it could be like to live with a partner, in the 6+2+4=12 days we spent together out of a total of 90. And what it could be like to fall over and over in love after each meeting of ours. And what it could be like to start despairing as you watched yourself go on the path, and the thorns beginning to show up rapidly and menacingly, as the flowers became even more intoxicating and the feeling more addictive. They were also characterised by spending much time with a girl here, trying to convince myself that the convenient duplicity could be brought conveniently into my own life as well, of course unsuccessfully. A lot of drama that followed may have been avoided had I had taken a firm stance with her from the beginning.

Then came my new friends; starting with telling my roommate from college about me, and letting myself be slightly surprised when he too admitted to his attraction towards men. Since then we became ever so much more close as friends, coz now there was so much more to share, open our hearts, our joys, our sorrows, a whole new facet of our lives.

A friend, the lone guy i met through chat in all that time, a heart-of-gold person whose sincerity and sweetness was all to die for, and now we've gotten to be the best of buddies. Thats destiny for you, makes you cross paths with complete strangers from a different dimension, and makes them a part of life.

Another guy, my senior from school!... now a great friend and confidante. There is so much one can share with friends, you can be totally yourself, something that even a relationship does not completely permit. Thoughts like these and many others are his and i feel delighted to be able to learn so much from them.

My senior from college (again!) who i am beginning to admire with the passing of each day, for that simple charm and a warm, comforting presence. I wish him continuing loads of love from his boyfriend forever...

More friends and a couple of new faces on the horizon wind up my 2005, an year that was so important to me professionally, wherein I was lucky to reap what I had set out for achieving out of my MBA, and year that I would never ever be able to forget personally. The year of first love.