Rearview 2016

Twenty sixteen takeaways.

1_Cockroaches, move on. Bed bugs are here to stay! Just awed by the unbelievable resilience of these tiny irritating creatures. The best weapon: Blue kerosene. The worst news: These buggers are, well, resilient. 

2_If a kid cries, the blame lies on the adults around her/him. Think about it.

3_Have been trying to type out 'Bureaucracy' without any spell check support. The failed attempts continue over the years. Who invented the word? Berocracy looks bad; but sounds just fine. Oxford guys, listening?

4_It hurts. Queuing (spell check done) in front of the ATMs for those old one hundred rupee currencies. Happy: My salon (barber shop, saloon) next door accepts Paytm. I got a neat hair cut; like a military man.

5_Air travel continues to be a nightmare. Security check, boarding pass, hand bag, ID card, cabin bag, restless queues, endless wait, regular delays, 20 Kg barrier, pain in the ears, troubled tummy, ticket printout, sleeplessness, insipid meals, odd packing hours, hell of a noise, mandatory hello-namaste-bye-bye-thanks at the flight gates, the snoring neighbour, the yelling baby, the thud while landing, dizziness before the take off, wallet-cellphone-boardingpass-specs-magazine-jacket-cabinbag-waterbottle-flight mode-gawd! Can you beat it?

6_Who said Schindler's List was boring? 

7_Most satisfying: growing lots of plants, and plucking the vegetables. Try it yourself. 

8_A cat that jumped off the seventh floor terrace - was already at its ninth life or perhaps, it did not know to differentiate between its head and the four soft feet during a free fall. Or perhaps, there was a gravity tunnel between the two towers. RIP. 

9_The best place to sit when you are travelling with two small and dynamatic kids - the driver's seat. No one is allowed to mess with you. You call it The Great Escape!

10_Being an expert at something ties you down. Try being a novice; pretend to be a school boy. The world is wide open. You will get many likes. The government should print more money and improve exports. We already have thirteen likes. We should print more dollars and improve imports. That starts with like seventeen likes.

11_Work-life balance is not a type of balance that you could probably locate in a physics lab.

12_Just do it! The best thing about procrastination (sounds odd, but it just means delaying things) is, it tastes better with time. I need to purchase a pair of brown, formal shoes. 

13_If you are married, and yet you manage to be ultra-fit with half-a-dozen packs, teenagers are still going to address you 'Uncle'. Be graceful. Even the U.S., a strong and extraordinary country, is called Uncle Sam; not as Sam Bro. 

14_It was a dull year for Hollywood. No Bond movie. No Sam Mendes. No DiCaprio. No bison meat. What the hell! But yes, there was a Star Wars; I think it's some 17th sequel or so.

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15_Best multi-tasker - a working woman with kids. (All ladies, vote for me)

16_MJ is the God of dance and music videos. Late realisation. Better l.a.t.e. than never.

17_She will sweep you off your feet; you have intense emotional and physical outpouring; you can go on without any food for days together; and you feel hot. She is Ms.Food Poissone. She is fond of vegetarians too. The good part: Pretty much nothing. Endure. Whatever goes in, has to come out. (Newton's missed Law)

18_Put it on paper. It destuffs (new word?) the m i n d.

19_A dear friend recently told me the strongest bond on the planet is not the ionic bond, but the dad-daughter bond. Unfortunately, I can neither confirm nor deny that. 

20_I got to know a guy who has the contact number of a maaliswala in Marine Drive, Mumbai. So you just need to give him a call, to get a massage in Marine Drive.

21_When we meet someone, we try to dig in for the least common multiplier. Too much mathematics?

22_When a mental meets a master and says 'You are a mental', in psychology they called it projection. Depression is a baby cyclone gearing up to gobble you.

23_Travel, it opens up your mind. Just think about travel, it does that double effectively. 

We stop here.