Earth Hour 2009 - March 28 - 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM

      Earth Hour is an annual international event organised by the WWF (World Wide Fund), held on the last Saturday of March every year (since 2007), that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. This year, the earth hour falls between 8.30 PM and 9.30 PM on 28th of March.

      WWF is urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference 2009 to be held in Copenhagen later this year. (Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming). People from 825 cities across 80 countries have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday. The objective of earth hour is not to conserve power by switching off lights for an hour, but to spread awareness on climate change and the threats it poses to the people, especially to those who are already living in drought ridden conditions. So let's become a part of a noble effort to bring out this critical issue to the forefront. At this juncture, we should also pledge to do our bit to fight climate change by all means possible.

"Climate change is a very important issue facing us today. We are all in a position to make a contribution to help change our planets future. Earth Hour is a great opportunity to make this contribution whether it is turning off lights or a candle lit vigil with our friends. I encourage all of you to join me in supporting Earth Hour ". - Sachin Tendulkar

Visit the WWF India blog  http://wwfindia.blogspot.com and sign up now.

Education - Expansion, Excellence and Engaging Everyone

[This post is an essay written for the National Knowledge Commision's online contest]

Excellence - Teaching and Learning:

         Our current system of education in the government run schools and some private schools – the ones in which young people like me grew up in – lays emphasis on the ‘what, who and when’ part of information. But instead, when the primary focus of information changes to the ‘why, how and why not’ part of it, it is only then we can say we have a system which instills wisdom into the minds of children. This ‘learn-by-heart-and-reproduce’ style of learning advocated in most of the schools in India has come under severe criticism from several quarters for a long time now. But unfortunately, nothing seems to have changed in the methodology of teaching or in the pattern of examinations at the school and college levels. This is partly because of the fact that the easiest known way of testing someone’s ability is to look at his academic score and hence the marks-focused teaching and learning is hitherto, the order of the day. But having said this, it would we very unfair to conclude that those students who have earnt high marks and thus got into good institutes of higher learning are not par excellence. It is, however, just to argue that only the analytical skills of these students are being leveraged and their creative and lateral thinking abilities often go untested and under-utilized.

         This problem need not be addressed by making a complete overhaul of the educational system. Small changes to the syllabi, teaching and learning styles, examination patterns, and emphasis on more practical oriented education can start the process of unlocking the creative and inquisitive potential in every student. Understandably, under the present system of conducting public examinations, the test papers cannot have questions whose answers are evaluated on the basis of subjective interpretation of the teacher evaluating it. So the examinations will have to remain predominantly objective, but the answers need not be traced back to some ‘between the lines’ words in the text books and instead should be based on the extent of comprehension of the subject. But in doing so, we must not fail to realize that there will be no level playing field for students coming from the poorly managed public schools. So this process of engaging students creatively should start from the primary level at every government run school. The classroom sessions should be interactive and the internal test papers should be more reasoning based. Practical sessions, demonstrations and multimedia content sharing should be done wherever possible to sustain interest. Incentives should also be made available to teachers who promote creative thinking and encourage the attitude of asking questions.

    Aside from imparting noesis on various subjects from history to science, education plays a very important role in shaping the attitude of children. I remember one of my teachers who, when responding to a student’s argument that women are inferior to men, said “when 10 years of education has not changed your attitude, then this education is going to take you nowhere”. According to her, shaping of one’s attitude is one of the most important roles of education. Shaping the attitude can refer to anything from changing one’s thought processes to character building. Acts like demanding explanations, looking to learn something from everyone, traits like mutual respect, humility, positive thinking etc. can be examples of commonly agreed principles of good attitude. In this respect, I strongly believe in the following words, “A mediocre teacher teaches, a good teacher motivates, an excellent teacher inspires.” This inspiration can be anything from good academic commitment to strong character and values. Nevertheless, it is also education which is responsible for creating students who are willing to get inspired, because without this willingness, none of the inspirations in the vicinity will be of any assistance.

Inclusion and Expansion:

    Inclusiveness in education is one of the biggest problems facing India today. It is about including all children irrespective of their religion, caste, sex, status into the mainstream education system. It’s also about taking special care to bring in the differently-abled children into the system.

   There is now a healthy trend in the reach of education as the number of children, both male and female entering primary schools is on the rise in most parts of the country. The members of the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE) team (which surveyed primary schools in about 200 villages in undivided Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in 1996 and 2006) writing in The Hindu, say that the school enrolment rates have risen sharply, for example, from 80 to 95 per cent in the age group of 6-12 years from 1996 to 2006. The report also highlights the fact that the social disparities in school enrolment have considerably narrowed, the schooling infrastructure has improved and the schooling incentives like the mid day meal scheme have expanded considerably. The mid day meal scheme, in particular has been the driving factor in bringing in poor anorexic children into the mainstream education system. But on studying further, the team realizes that the good news ends there. Although the quantity part of it shows good signs, the quality aspect of it a cause for concern. Unmanageable teacher-student ratio, poor attendance levels of the students and teachers, little engagement of classes by the teachers are apparently the issues to be addressed. The study also showed that even in classes where there were some ‘learning’ activities, they were nothing more than chanting mathematical tables or reciting notes without comprehension. So even if we achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by the year 2015, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that there are great leaps to be made in the quality front.

   Private schools, which were once thought be the answer for all these problems, have not been able to impact the lives of these ill-fated children. Close to 80 percent of the country’s children are still in the government schools and hence privatization of primary education has not helped the majority. Also, well managed private schools which collect a moderate fee have either become economically unviable to run or seen to compromise on those very aspects, which form the purpose of they coming into existence. Hence in the rural country side, there is nothing much to choose between a state run institution and a privately managed one.

Coaching classes and tuitions, which have almost become inevitable for students in the towns and cities, are still a distant dream for their counterparts in the villages.

     The scenario in higher education is no different as excellence and inclusion are still unintelligible jargons here. The share of private institutions in higher education increased from a third to over half of all enrolment in the last few years, most of them in the areas on Engineering, Medical Sciences and Management. But studies from various organizations like the NKC have shown that the standards of a very large proportion of institutions are abysmal. The regulatory bodies like AICTE, NBA and MCI have not been able to operate efficiently without genuine autonomy and hence there is very little regulation. With a high fee structure in most of these private institutions, students from average families find it extremely difficult to pursue higher studies and hence India still educates only 10-15 percent of its young people in institutes of higher learning.

    The other interesting phenomenon in higher education is the sudden surge in the professional education streams and hence the decrease in the fervor for pure science based courses and research related works. The situation is evident when we look at the number of PhDs that India produces in Computer Science every year. The figure which was 50 in the year 2006, is exactly the average number of PhDs completed in every US University each year. India’s dominance in Information Technology arena would’ve been much higher if we had more research work happening in the related areas. This clearly demonstrates the need for stronger institutes of higher learning and better incentives for pursuing research which needs higher funding and better channelization. Ironically though, the student loan disbursement of over Rs.20,000 crores by public sector banks till the end of financial year 2007-08 stands in striking contrast to the total central plan allocation for higher education - Rs.3263 crores for 2007-08 and Rs.7600 crores for 2008-09. This, experts say, is clearly not enough to achieve all that we hope to. But much of this can also be industry driven with a world class infrastructure already by their side

    Besides the government, the NGOs operating in this space are indispensable and hence they should continue to play an important role in the universalization of education. As individuals, we must also do our part to help anyone possible in their education and thus sow the seeds of their empowerment. As Dr. A.P.J Abdul kalam says, if we desire to do something for our country, then the best way of doing it is by helping a child in his/her education.

    Through all these collective measures, if the gaps are bridged and the reach and quality of primary and higher education is improved substantially, then it will give a huge fillip to the country’s innovative capabilities. When millions of more young people are empowered through quality education, it means that there will be several times more ‘thinking population’ in India, thus making it one of the most powerful engines of growth in the country. Our dream of making India truly a knowledge economy will then be ever closer and definitely within reach.

unPROJ{t}ECTed TIGER

The recently released tiger census report titled ‘State of tiger, co-predators and prey in India’ brought into limelight the grim reality of the plight of tigers in India, home to the single largest tiger population in the world. To read that the tiger population has decreased by more than 50% to 1,411 from 3,642 in the last five years was a shocking experience to all those who were hoping to see a reversal of trend ever since the ‘Project Tiger’ initiative was launched. The report said that there had been an overall decrease in the tiger population in all the states except in Tamil Nadu where the numbers have gone up substantially from 60 in 2001-02 to 76 now. The assessment has shown that the tiger has suffered due to direct poaching, loss of quality habitat and its prey. And all this has happened despite ‘Project tiger’, which had shown signs of change early on. But some NGOs and field biologists have asserted that there has not been a great decrease in the population of tigers, but the difference in numbers is partly due to the difference in the methodology of the census, as the contentious pug-mark method was not used this time, thus giving more accurate results. Be that as it may, the dwindling tiger numbers has sounded an alarm to the government to give a fillip to tiger conservation and thus to larger wildlife conservation efforts.

How has the tiger's fate come to this? The foremost reason is poaching to meet demand for tiger products used in traditional medicines in China and other parts of East Asia. The other crucial factor is the continuous loss of tiger habitat, which is down by about 40% across India in the last decade, along with which has disappeared much of its prey. The Forest guards are ill equipped to counter the increasing threat of poaching. There are over 30 per cent vacancies in most national parks. Inadequate buffer zones also remain a concern. Adding to the misery is the local communities being kept isolated from conservation programmes.

I came across a ‘Tiger anthem’ in WWF India’s website which was quite interesting,

Tiger Anthem

My son asked me the other day
Do we have tigers only in the zoos?
My teacher tells me the forests are gone
The deer are gone, wild animals are gone
The king of the jungle now kills our cattle
Poachers on his trail
Now people live where once he lived
His skin is up for sale.

I said son, your teacher's not fully right
Tigers are in danger, but still they survive
You can still see them in the wild
Sure I will take you there someday
The future of the tiger still hangs by a thread
But the battle is still not lost
We don't wanna see tigers only in the zoos
We'll save them at any cost

And it’s now or never, for the future of the tiger
It is time to decide if we wanna see the tigers in the wild
And he looked you in the eye, when you shot him, before he died
It is time that we ensure we gave the tigers a safe home.

Well son, the tiger needs your support
In you his future lies
If the tigers live, the forests live
And we need it for us to survive
I take the vow not to buy anything
That has tiger part
And I will try my best to gain all support
For the tiger with all my heart

And it’s now or never....

In the Union budget 2008-2009, the allocation for the Ministry of Environment and Forests has been increased from Rs 1,539 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 1,707 crore in 2008-09 and the funding for the Project Tiger programme has been enhanced from Rs 61.50 crore to Rs 72 crore. Also, the FM has announced a grant of Rs 50 crore for a Tiger Protection Force. So with resource issue being taken care of, the success of the initiative now banks on the state governments and the establishment who are involved in the actual implementation with the help of wildlife experts. As ordinary people, we can only hope that this does not become another case of outlays in the budget being rendered futile by the actual outcomes.

In Bandipur National Park, the increasing number of tourists every year is becoming a major concern as non-adherent travelers are making life all the more difficult for the wild animals. Hence, the rules should be communicated clearly to all those to travel inside a wildlife territory, and any violation of such a law should be stringently dealt with. So as common people we need to be responsible enough to conform to the protocols established by the forest authorities while making trips inside reserved forests or wildlife habitations. In doing so, we may prevent the situation from aggravating further.

The Road if taken

One of my friends had joined the Indian Air Force five years ago as an Airman. He was in his first year at the higher secondary school by then and decided to curtail his academic interests hoping to make a good career out of the iaf. But he had little idea about the airman position in the iaf and the responsibilities to be handled and only hoped to an iaf pilot one day. He had to make that not-so pleasant choice bearing in mind the financial position of his family and moreover the prospect of becoming a pilot made it a hard choice for him to resist. Also, it seemed to be a better choice then with all the pecuniary benefits that were in the offing. It was believed to bring some respite to his family but finally ended up not just falling short of his expectations but also adding to his woes.


The airmen position is not similar to the ranks of designated technical officers or commanders who come in through the NDA. Airman recruitment happens at even earlier stage where the candidate is just expected to have passed 10th standard or equivalent. So he was not involved in technocracy or stuff like that and neither was he was involved in combat operations. The job profile in fact was related to bookkeeping and accounting which required no more than basic knowledge in computers. He had little idea that there wasn't much room for personal growth in such a profession. Sadly, it was also learnt that his dream of becoming a pilot can barely be realized being an airman, thereby making it an untenable a profession to move on. But by the time he realized all of that, it was already too late as he had already signed a service agreement for at least 20 years which was unbreakable at any cost.


Notwithstanding that his job did not require a good physique; his initial training was similar to that of the commando training. He had a 15 months rigorous training program at various training camps all over India. All through that period, he had to get up as early as 3.00 in the morning and run for 10 – 20 kms before taking on his customary exercises. The rest of the day would be occupied by parades and other physical fitness trainings, trainings on agility and furtiveness that we often get to watch in movies. Despite all this, once in every week every airman was deployed in patrolling and guarding responsibilities around the ground station, which has its horror stories to tell.

He was promised a pay package of Rs.7000/- per month initially, with the food and accommodation at free of cost. This meant that he could save most his earnings and help his family, thus making it an attractive option. But as with many other contemporaries, he had to call up his girl friend quite often and that cost him (only financially) more than anything else. So the by end of all this, he could not have made a great deal of money every month. The saddest part of his salary though is the appraisal that he gets at the end of every year. It still remains a pathetic 60 rupees, which ideally will increase his salary by a mere 1,200 rupees by the end of twenty tormenting years. But of course when the ‘promotion’ factor comes into picture, there might be a nominal increase in his salary. Even then, the increase in salary will still remain Rs.100 every year thereafter. So one can clearly observe that he is severely underpaid and he can never hope to live his dreams with such a skimpy amount of money.


Life has never been easy for him ever since he embarked on this challenging mission. At a time when the inevitability of liberalism is becoming a reality among the civilian community, the essentiality of conformism is still the way of life for him. There are rules and regulations for almost everything he does, even in repast so to say. “Your Boss is always right“ is the code that one has to live by as never can one question the basis for an order passed. Thus drawing parallel with the lives of young people like us today makes him feel guilty for having made a decision that changed his life forever. Nobody ever expected that an engineering degree would fetch a high-paying job in sorts like ours' and may be that’s why he wanted to seek a professional career early in his life. Today in retrospection, it definitely appears to be a mistake not because he chose the iaf, but because for his ability, he had chosen too small a confinement in the iaf. Unfortunately, there is not even a single person in his company who can speak reassuringly to make him feel better. But of course to say that his life has been messed up might be an understatement, although one can say that his life has been taken a little off course. Hence even today he is desperately trying to break the shackles and come out of it to live a life that he thoroughly deserves. Wishful thinking as it may sound to be, I hope that he will be flying a MiG aircraft one day.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited or Balaaji, Service Nehin Limited

The country’s state owned telephone company, BSNL is the country’s largest fixed telephone and broadband service provider. But not many of us would be in concurrence if someone says that it is also known for the quality of service it offers.
A hilarious incident that happened last week involving my friend SP.Balaaji (spb) is an illustration of the shape in which the organization is being run.

Balaaji, a customer of bsnl’s high speed internet access service called DataOne, had to call up bsnl’s customer care service seeking resolution of a technical snag.

After several attempts to find the customer care’s call center number, which by itself was a hectic ask, we finally managed to find not just one, but three numbers. One of the numbers was assigned to an automated answering machine, as is the case with most of the customer service centers. Here is the sequence of events that transpired when Balaaji made the call,

The voice: “Hello, Welcome to bsnl’s DataOne customer services, Please dial ‘1’ for English and ‘2’ for Kannada.”

spb dialed the ‘1’ button to choose English

The voice: “ Invalid digit, Please try again”

spb dialed ‘2’, hoping for a reversal of fortune this time around,

The voice: Invalid digit, Your maximum number of tries are over, Please try again later. Thank you for Calling bsnl.

The call was disconnected then.


We were rendered speechless and awestruck by the outcome. We were not sure if this was a meticulously thought out strategy of bsnl to counter the criticism that it did not have a 24*7 customer service centre or was it merely some technical issue with the automated system. But there were two instances which made us consider seriously such a possibility. One was the ‘maximum number of tries are over’ response which was atypical of any customer care service, let alone the lucky draw contests. Another was the fact that we were not able to reach any of the customer care representatives through their direct landline numbers. Also, no mobile phone numbers were given to us during the installation. These made us believe that it was definitely conspired by bsnl in order to prevent the customers from trying to reach the non-existent customer care representatives in the weekends and during public holidays.


Amazed by what had happened, we decided to step in directly into bsnl’s premises, hoping to figure out what exactly was happening. But we never expected that another surprise was in the offing for us. The kind of reception that we got was even worse. Spb went to a lady, who appeared to have all the patience on earth to listen to and solve our problems. But it was not long before he realized that it was indeed deceptive. She received us with a sulking “what?”. Spb explained that we could use the internet for some weird reason. Then she replied “Oh yes, the server is down and they are working on it”. When asked when the issue will be resolved, she bluntly replied “How do I know? Come here on Monday if you have the same problem”. I understand that it was not in her capacity to deal with the customers directly, neither was she trained to do so. But nobody requires training to be humane. We greeted her and then came back discerning that it was after all, the characteristic of a government run institution.

Neo-fraternalism Redefined ..

Living in Bangalore, one of the cities worst hit by the western mania (synonymous to globalization these days) in our country, I can already sense changes in the way we live everyday. But unfortunately, the anthropology of globalization is still in its infancy, concerning only the urban elites of our country. Life here has become fast paced, so much so that we sometimes become apathetic to what’s happening to people around us. For the youth traveling alongside the city’s suburban areas, the place is rendered abstract through the air-conditioners, obscure and closed windows, high speed, loud music and animated conversations. The cry of the desecrated souls living outside in appalling conditions does not permeate this glass and iron. I might sound like a septuagenarian, making this seemingly far-fetching allegation against today’s youth, but I am indeed one of those culpable youth, still trying to ascertain why we have lost our ethos. The Silicon Valley of India has truly been a blessing ground for many, providing the all important career to them, but for many other distant cousins living in the outskirts of the city, what’s happening here is a mere spectacle and the one that they can never hope to seek to be a part of.

I have always wondered why we are budging towards the west when everything begins in the east. I am finding it very difficult to understand why the American way of going about life is considered to the best when there are so many other cultures that are still extant, worth emulating. But even if doing so is considered to be progress, then we ll have to inherit all that complements ours and not that substitutes ours. Sadly though, we have derived all but the vital and essential from the transoceanic culture that we are so obsessed with. Bangalore, once called as the garden city, is today called as the city of pubs, with the highest number of pubs in the country. We do not realize that the Starbucks, the McDonalds and the pubs are not the reason why the US is the most developed country in the world; they perhaps are the result of such supremacy. If the current trend prevails, we may boast to have the same number of shopping malls, multiplexes, pubs and recreation centers as the US does, but end up having lost badly in the other and the most important ‘social’ front. We may not provide endowments in billions of dollars to our universities as the Americans do, but we can still contribute to the society in our small way.


According to a recent McKinsey report, the number of people living in poverty (in absolute terms) in India is at a level of just above 200 million. For all those who are reading this, it’s a mere statistic. But the meaning of poverty can only be felt and cannot be truly appreciated unless we take some time off trying to comprehend what it means to be in poverty. Every time I hear the word ‘party’, for some weird reason, I am reminded only of the exact opposite word ‘poverty’. I think of the 60,000 odd villages which do not even have electricity, 100,000 odd villages which do not have a telephone connection. The plight of the people, especially women and children in such places goes way beyond our imagination. Huh.. Well, apparently we cannot afford to have pArty pOVERty (read CAPS first).

Well, ‘Who’s responsible for this?’, this is not the question I am trying to seek an answer for, rather I ask myself, ‘why not make some difference to the lives of a few people around us, instead of avidly searching for a reason to go out for a party?’. Well, but that’s where it all ends. I have never made any tangible difference to anyone’s life, every time making one or another lame excuse under the pretext of being busy and I feel compunctious for that. Nobody here is against partying, but if we can cut down the number of parties in a year by one, and spent the proceedings on a common cause, then we thoroughly deserve to savor the other parties for the year. The contribution that we make can be related to the education of rural children, as education means social empowerment, if not economical or can be anything that brings smiles in the face of the under-privileged. Such an act can undeniably bring a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment never felt before.

I know that many of who are reading this are already associated with a few of such works in your own way and all that I want to ask you is to keep up your good work and continue to inspire people like me into doing the same.

Life's like that..

Against all odds, I went home after a hectic day’s work on 8.9.2007 (Saturday), hoping to show my new laptop to everyone in my family. But fate had other plans for me for the weekend as I went there only to learn about my maternal grand father’s death.

I was in my house unwrapping my laptop bag to show the contents to my sister, who had just come back home from college, when the news about this fateful incident reached us through one of our relatives. As always, I was sitting in my room unaware of what was happening outside. When my sister opened the door to convey the news to me, I could sense a sense of exigency in her action and on looking at her face, I could sense that something had gone terribly wrong. When she finally managed to express herself, I was reminded of very similar incident that happened before. It was she who with a similar facial expression let me know about the death of one of my beloved friends five years ago. When I observed the same face again, it was a tear-jerking experience.

Ironically, it happened to be the day on which my thaatha and paati were to come home (as they always did when I went home from Bangalore). So we were expecting them any time; but we didn’t know that he was expecting us in Madathoor (his native village) for performing his last rites that we owed him.

I could do nothing but to look helplessly at his corpse and wonder what could have killed this otherwise hale and hearty person. He apparently suffered a severe Myrocardial infarction, commonly known as Heat Attack. ‘What caused it?’ , was a question that we all were trying to find an answer for. Then came the realization that it could perhaps be a ‘sun stroke’, a terminology that was quite new for many of us. Yes, he died doing what liked the most, working under hot sun. A Steve Irwin kind of death perhaps.

At an age of 74, one could not have asked for more from him. He worked day in and day out, relentlessly looking for one work or another to keep himself engaged. This eventualised into his death after his fragile physique relinquished support to his agile psyche.

Thanks to the advent of ubiquitous ‘mobile phone’, everyone concerned was informed about his sudden demise within an hour. So he was buried on the same day after all the rituals were performed. Since my thaatha was instrumental in initiating quite a few community works in the locality and provided his unequivocal support to any common cause, almost all in the village knew him and many of them loved him for his serene nature. He was known as “ Periya veetu naikkar “ among the people there. Since the death was a shock for all of us, it was not easy to come out of it and take care of all the arrangements on our own. But thankfully, we had people from the village volunteering to take care of everything. I was surprised with the pace at which all the arrangements were made by the local people with very limited access to the township as the bus connectivity is quite infrequent. There was no “what-do-i-get-out-of-this’ attitude among them and it made them work selflessly towards any common cause. I reckon this is a characteristic of a village and one may not expect such selfless participation from our neighbors in a seemingly busy city or township.

I wanted to stay back there for a week or two and comfort myself besides being an emotional support to my dejected uncle. But the circumstances did not allow me do so and hence I had to come back to Bangalore in a few days.

How’s life going to be after his death??. Well, it might appear to be the same for an outsider, but it is never going to be the same again for me. I wanted to get take my thaatha and paati to Bangalore and show them around to get a feel of what a city life is all about. Ever since I came to Bangalore, where ever I went, be it a mall or a temple, I always dreamt of taking them there and was even wondering how is a ‘shopping mall’ or an ‘IT park’ known in Tamil, so as to help them understand it better. I even went to the extent of making a tentative plan for their visit to Bangalore. In fact, I considered that making my grand parents happy was one of the purposes of my very existence. Now that he is dead without experiencing any of these, I feel as if my dreams are shattered and one of the purposes of my life seems to be lost. My dream can now come true only in state of hallucination. Had it not been for this incident, my life would have ensued seamlessly. This is all the more reason why I wanted to write about the incident.

After death, one does not feel blissful for what he has been , neither does he feel remorseful for the same. This contention helps me console myself every time I feel bad for not having done enough for my thaatha. So I assume that he is still alive and I can realize my dreams. After a few years, when I take my family for a travel around, I will assume that he is with us. Sometime later, say in 2010, I will assume that he dies after having spent time with me happily. So from 2010, it might not matter if I have done all that I wanted to or not. This is because after death, nothing makes any difference to him.

Is this quite hilarious?? It might sound so. But without such an intricate
delusion, my nostalgia can never be overcome.

Despite this figment of the imagination, life is never going to be the same any more. Weekends are never going to be same without him. But I still am learning to live with realities of life.