The sun sets on one year and prepares to rise on another… Always a time for introspection, self evaluation and resolution… This year I have decided to take this a little further. Since I have crossed the halfway mark of my mortal life, it is a good time to see where I am and where I wanted to be!

Well I am in a software project in Angola, thousands of miles away from my family on New Year’s Eve preparing for “Go-Live”. As I left the college portals with starlight in my eyes, if someone had told me that this would be my future, a quarter of a century or more down the road, I would have told the fortune teller that he was insane. But then that it is where I am!! Many a time we end up doing what we never intended to … It all boils down to what the caterpillar at the crossroads told Alice “It does not matter which road you take if you do not know where you want to go!”( Lewis Caroll in Alice in Wonderland)

Consolation is that I am not alone and that perhaps it is the story of quite a few folks who hit middle age before they realize it. But then we still have half our lives left to get the radar right and reset course! What is life without a few challenges or should I say opportunitiesJ

Well for me the first priority is to set the radar for the rest of my life by the middle of next year and then plan and chart out the course in instalments of three yearsJ

While I am busy finalizing the big picture there are other smaller resolutions like finding more time for

·        For family

·        For friends

·        The sick, the underprivileged, the orphans and the aged

·        Reading, Writing, Music and the Movies

·        Society as a whole to perform my role as a citizen rather than be an armchair critic of politicians and their ilk

·        Take care of my oldest and most faithful friend my body and his various components especially the lungs and the liver and the bones and the back!”

·        To give the job on hand my best shot

·        Travel and learn more about different lands, their peoples and cultures and enjoy multi-faceted hues of nature

·        Sunsets, sunrises, rain drops, dew drops, flowers, fruit trees, paddy fields, mountains beaches, deserts, cliffs, canyons and whatever else Nature’s Munificence has to offer. (The picture is of a sunset on the Altlantic, in Angola where I am now. You can see the Oil rigs in the distance)

·        The music of life, to take it slower and savour and enjoy it before the song is over as quoted in a poem in my last post.

Now that I have made a public statement of intent, here is hoping I will be able to follow them in some degree. In case I do slip up, I will be depending on my fellow Ilanders to haul me over the coals and bring me back on course. Looking forward the days to come, will be the days I will treasure most when I reach the twilight years…

As I sit and pen my dreams, I find that they have hardly changed over the years, which reminds me of an old song by Mary Hopkins which is one of my all time favourites:

Once upon time there was a Tavern,

Where we used to raise a glass or two.

Remember how we laughed away the hours,

Think of all the great things we would do.

Those were the days my friend

We thought they’d never end

We’d sing and dance forever and a day

We’d live the life we choose,

We’d fight and never lose

We were young and sure did have our way

Then the busy years went rushing by us

We lost our starry notions on the way

If by chance I’d see you in the Tavern,

We’d smile at one other and we’d say

Those were the days… O Yes those were the days…

Just tonight I stood before the Tavern

Nothing was the way it used to be

Through the doors there came familiar laughter,

I saw your face and heard you call my name

O my friend we are older but no wiser

For in our hearts the dreams are still the same.

Those were the days my friend…O Yes those were the days…

Here is wishing all of you and your near and dear ones a very happy, safe, healthy and prosperous 2007 and beyond. While celebrating and ringing out the Old and ringing in the New do take time to pray for all those who are less fortunate than us and include them in your thoughts and celebrations as well as in your plans for the years and times ahead.