Yet another year...

So 2006 is here. For me, New Years's eve has always been a time for celebration, not retrospection. No resolutions for sure.

This day meant more than any other - be it my birthday or Diwali. A strange sense of achievement. The excitement so high that I would wait eagerly for the 31st Dec. Newspaper every year and flip through the pages to the section that read "The world this year" - a quick reminiscence of all the events that year. The paper would eventually find its way into my clippings folder that I had maintained for almost 10 years. Was exciting to watch the celebration in Sydney first on TV, then India and finally culminating in the US. It felt like an extended festival only celebrated worldwide...

As a kid, I have fond memories of New Year's eve when we would spend the evening watching a live performance of some local bands at the school grounds and return home by midnight. As we grew a lil older, it was New Year with Doordarshan (India's National TV and the only one, before the cable TV era). Like a friend said yesterday, those days were good when you didn't have too many choices. This year it was very quiet, pretty much an indoorsy event staying home and watching TV. What was however surprising is that with hundreds of channels not one was worth watching for more than a few mins. It is at such times that one appreciates the quality and variety of the programs that DD churned out in the 80's and 90's which appealed to the audiences universally transcending generations.

Times have changed and so has the ways we usher in the New Year.