Joyous Season, memorable holidays and an amazing Year 2020!

In the month of September this year, during the early hours on a Friday, at a busy Coimbatore – Salem highway, the chauffer who was driving us from Kochi to Bangalore collapsed, losing complete control of his vehicle.  Being in a “self-driving car” non-powered by any Artificial Intelligence was first of its kind experience for me and hopefully, one off its kind too. For almost a minute the car traced zigzag on the highway, occasionally hitting the road divider and eventually crashing on to it. Like every other event in my life, I owe it to God that I’m alive to strike a conversation with you on yet another festive season.

That one minute, which seemed an eternity had me staring at a blurred line that separated life and death. Post the event, for several days at stretch I couldn’t help but reflect on the aforesaid incident from various angles, only to realise that being alive is one’s greatest fortune and if that’s amid goodness of other fellow beings, it’s indeed a generous bonus. With no second thought, let me say, human relations are what matters to me the most, perhaps more than ever before.

When our driver regained his consciousness almost immediately after the incident, he recounted how he gently took his foot off the accelerator when his vision went blurry, bringing the speed of his car down substantially. Off the top of my head, I fail to find a Year before Twenty Nineteen that brought me enormous material gains. But had the driver unconsciously put his foot down on the gas pedal, the outcome on that eventful Friday in September 2019 would have been entirely different, and all my material achievements some meaningless affairs. I’m all the more convinced that the most valuable wealth that I’m in possession of is one-hop access to kind hearted individuals like you, instrumental in shaping my blissful destiny. Thank you!

We are a few days shy of another brand New Year, but I wouldn’t spend a minute drafting resolutions that I hardly follow through, instead would gratefully remind myself of the richness of your company; also celebrate the fact that I continue to exist to live life.

When I turned off the phone alarm at 4:00 in the morning, the screen displayed the day and date as Friday, 13 September. I stay away from all sorts of superstitions, still my mind suggested something terrible was to happen, and so it did! Since then I’ve learned it’s a far better option to make positive suggestions to the subjective mind and expect only favourable events to unfold and so it will. The New Year 2020 sounds so cool; let’s all put together some positive mental images of life events that’ll bring glory, peace, harmony and joy in everyone’s life in the coming year.

As always, with immense gratitude, here’s wishing you & your loved ones a joyous season, memorable holidays and an amazing Year 2020!

–R Rajesh

SEASON’S GREETINGS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MERRY CHRISTMAS & A GRAND YEAR 2019

I’m blessed to have known you. Can’t thank you enough for coming by this space to lend me your ears for a few moments, perhaps not the first time, if we’ve known each other for over a year. It has become a habit to scribble away a few thoughts at the fag end of the Year, which if there was an option, I would have preferred it to be a face-to-face, heart-to-heart dialogue. The retrospective mood that most of us get into at this time of the year, and the hopes we raise for a more promising future spanning next twelve months, I reckon, makes this juncture the most suitable one to touch base, renew and strengthen our link.

Historically, my New Year resolutions never yielded me six pack abs, fattened savings or sought-after skills on the CV. The knowledge and importance of a reasonable fitness regime, prudent spending and new life skill acquisitions don’t get granted any special powers on the first of January every year to be able to promptly translate into actions. We can give a shot at any noble goal at any part of the year. So of course, I’m not really building my hopes around a new calendar that’ll soon find its place on my wall, and will continue to stay open to everything that life has in offer, be it in Winter, Spring, Summer or Autumn.

But there’s something about the chilly weather, the street side illuminations, the Christmas Carols and Caravans that reminds me of all the good things that ever happened to me in my life. Without a doubt, the one that I cherish the most are the contacts that I happened to make with good-hearted souls like you, the fun we had, and the lessons learned from it. To the unseen force that made it all happen, I stay eternally grateful. 

So, with another year almost behind us, and a new one beckoning, just when we all take a relatively long pause to take stock of bygone events, realign future goals, recharge our batteries, reconnect with the wonderful humans surrounding us, I don’t want to miss an opportunity to repeat like a parrot that our relationship matters to me hell of a lot and that I wouldn’t have been what I’m today but for your kindness and affection. New Year resolutions hardly worked for me in the past but reconnecting with you have always made me happy. I feel tremendously thankful for your company and look forward to another great year that’ll put me in close contact with many more guiding souls like you.

Here’s wishing you from the bottom of my heart, Season’s Greetings, Happy & Memorable Holidays, a very Merry Christmas & a Grand New Year 2019!

New Year Wishes – Year 2016

When the clock hands sweep two more rounds, our life takes a turn, or at least that’s what some of us believe. Not this year alone, but for several years that have gone by, many of us perhaps anticipated a complete make over once every dozen months. Three weeks into changing our calendars, a good number of us tore apart a list of life changing activities , quite seriously drafted over a New Year Eve, on every New Year Eve maybe,  one that’s not too different from what we may have in possession today. Agreed, all of it is past and is way behind us, but with a fresh start in place we might be brimming with confidence, backed up by an unprecedented optimism to run through a brand new set of resolutions that’ll keep our waistline in check, maintain a steady spend pattern, polish CV with new impressive skill sets, and last but not the least, strike a balance in life. May it be so!

A research says that a goal set on Monday or similar “temporal landmarks” is pursued more seriously than otherwise. While I don’t know of a data that talks the same way of a goal set on a New Year, I wish you achieve all of that you’ve in your mind in the year to come. Personally, I continue to believe that to gain something in life, we ought to set a goal, develop strong will, work hard, maintain enthusiasm, persevere and be grateful. For that, we can take a call ‘Here and Now’, not necessarily only on a New Year Eve.  Well, that makes my New Year look Black & White, devoid of any thrilling action. But when the world is taking a pause to reflect on the glory days of life in the past twelve months, laugh away the mistakes made, overcome the pain of losses, and look forward to offer a warm welcome to a New Year, let me stop by you to say , “Thank you”, for whatever role you played in my life, not just in the year that’s passing by, but for ever and a day, in making me what I’m today or putting me where I stand.

If we have known each other for some years now, you know well of my ritual to reach over to you on this very occasion, largely to let you know that you are in my thoughts, strong as ever before, and that I stay grateful to you for being there for me. I’ve always held my faith onto the invisible architect, who I believe, carefully constructs moments after moments in our life, even that of connecting us through Channels that, at times, appear so very strange. It’s foolish not to say “Thank God” in a note that has gratefulness painted all over it.

And if life is made up of many moments, why not spend some of it on the last day of this year in Fun and Celebration. Like you, I hardly fancy a New Year sans difficult events. All the same, I hope we can all pump in enough positivity to as much of moments as we can in the coming year for a flourishing life. So before you get busy with the fireworks tonight, here’s wishing you, your friends & family, from the bottom of my heart, a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous Year 2016.