A quick list of people and things in the year gone by and how they affected me :
Events : The Wall Street Collapse , the doubts on free market economy and the mindless surge of oil prices to $160 a barrel and back swung the sensex from 22000 to 7500 taking with them more than a million of my hard earned rupees . My leessees of my houses , mostly software blokes , also evacuated citing job losses , leaving behind no rental income for me . Making it quite an unforgettable year of fiscal losses .
People : Barack Obama ( he's the man ) won a hard-fought heavily publicised election battle redeeming my faith in audacious hope , beautiful Sarah Palin( she's something - can't figure out what ) gave me quite a few laughs in a trying year and Ratan Tata's battles with Corus , Jaguar , Singur , Nano and Taj showed me how mettle matters while Lalit Modi with his awesome marketing converted me single-handedly into a cricket fan . Alan Greenspan who wrote an Age of turbulence before the Age of trubulence gave me an insight into how he created the mess that was to come after his quitting . Imran Khan , the new kid on the bollywood block was refreshing and his second movie , Kidnap , was just so . Daniel Craig endeared and so did joker Heath Ledger , just before he died . Adiga stole my plot and won the booker , but am not complaining .
Movies : The Dark Knight and Casino Royale earn my accolades while Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na turned me into a hopeless romantic again .
Books : Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Shaw's Pygmalion set me thinking , Maughams autobiographical Of Human Bondage's 700 pages mirrored my life too and the Audacity of Hope enlightened me . ( Is that all the fiction I read this year ? ) . Read a bunch of books on television journalism - Crazy like a Fox finally told me what was right and left , how embedded journalism has changed the world and how CNN lost the plot to Fox news , Hugh Miles's Al Jazeera stunningly clarified my views on the Arab media scene , Nalin Mehta's India on Television was boringly historical , Bonnie Andersens cryptic NewsFlash was CNNs story and McGowan's Coloring the News provided worthwhile perspective on print news journalism , probably also indicating reasons why Obama could have won , the pacy thriller Television Disrupted threw me deep into the technicalities of broadcasting and Dilip Awasthi's The Special Correspondent gave me insights on the tactics of news gathering . Bought most from Rediff.com , except Newsflash which was from Amazon.com
Adventures : The Sky jump - worlds highest - Macau ( my legs still tingle when I visualise the final few seconds before I jumped ) made me believe more in myself while the Cruise on the Nile fulfilled me with wonder on the largest river in the world .
Moves : Radio to TV ( theatre of the mind to mindless theatre ! ) Saw news happen - terrorists at the taj , US elections ,Indian olympic victories upclose from newsroom .
Gadgets :The iPhone has changed my life - snaps , maps , mails , youtube , blogs , itunes , surfing the web and of course , taking the calls couldn't have been more brilliant . A new record score of 36000 in my macman stands - could be breaking it anyday.
Architecture : The Bangalore and Hyderabad airports are terrificly visitable - at the airports , feels like Hongkong in there . The Pyramids - were a true wonder - so was the Bibliotheque at Alexandria - sheer engineering brilliance . The Bandra-Worli sea link is turning out to be one too .
Sports : The sensational IPL matches dragged me into stadiums in Mumbai ( DY Patil ) and Delhi ( Ferozeshah Kotla ) as I fell in love with the abbreviated version of the game . But a hard-earned crystal cup after many years brought me back to my first love - soccer .
2009 , here I come .
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