Probably for the first time, I have started writing this year review post before the year ended. It is now the early morning of the last day of 2020. It is not my excitement that is prompting me to write, but the fear of lack of time for writing this post in the coming days. [but I am finishing on 15 Jan only).
Corona and subsequent lockdown dominated the year. It changed the course of daily lives for every one of us. Since 22 March'20 I have been living at Agia. This is kind of unimaginable scenario. More than 8.4 Crore people has been affected (I am also one of them) and more than 18 Lakh people have died until now all over the world. With more than 2.02 Crore cases as on today, US is leading the count of infected cases, followed by India, Brazil and Russia respectively. The death toll leader US stands at 3.5 Lakh, followed by Brazil, India and Mexico as on today.
However, the start of the year didn't look like the same. We started hearing the cases coming up in Wuhan, but didn't pay much attention. I remember my trip to Bangalore amidst lockdown type situation; my entry was restricted at multiple places.
Big Lockdown projects:
1. House construction expense full calculation (total came to be apprx 77.2 Lakh)
2. BP Medicine becomes regular (until marriage got fixed)
3. Knowledge on Ramayana, Mahabharata, Avatars of Lord Vishnu (so intense that later shifted to Youtube)
4. New terms such as Tabligi Jamad, Covid-19, Lockdown, quarantine, vaccine,
5. Searching the books with missing entries (started from missing 164 count), bringing new categories of souvenier with SOV series
6. Relief food packet distribution during lock-down
7. The books - কৰ্ণফুলিৰ পাৰত, পৰেশ বৰুৱাৰ সন্ধানত, মানৰ দেশত, মোৰো এটা সপোন আছে, The Difficulty of being Good (continued)
8. Reflecitng old memories, personalities (ref- 16 April page)
9. Renovating my room with racks, paints etc, then Maa's room as well
10. The article on reverse migrants published in News18 portal after multiple attempts
11. Helping Maa document her published works at one place
12. The LP School souvenier - this the the biggest project after Marriage and land. The long seating sessions at Drishti press, the fund raising efforts, article colelction and editing efforts, ISBN attempts, the last minute issues with paper quality, the different decisions, involving different people, taking and drafting the interviews and finally inauguration on 26 Sept
13. Buying the land at Ghy
14. First buy of an online course -Ninja Writing which is still to complete
15. Writing to Homen Borgohain Sir
16. The celebrity career sessions in Xomidhan, including Zubeen
17. The year with no appraisal or variable component
18. Moina learning the car driving
19. Morning cycling
20. The reduced rent paid to pappu ji; in other words, paid premium without usage
21. Meeting ex ULFA of Goalpara district- Pranay Ray (Bapujinagar), Raktim Da (at library), Chaliha (Dhanubhanga)
22. Land
23. Marriage
Health:
1. High BP medicine became common during lockdown. With the different discussion at home, my BP went out of control. During June-July-Aug time I had regular tablets- Telmisartan 20 mg. and sometimes Amtaz. After marriage thing got settled, I stopped taking medicines regularly.
2. Getting infected by Covid-19 is another health related update of the year. Although I had no symptoms, Dada had symptoms. The visits to the hospital for tests, pushing through the authorities for correct reporting on positive case, the medicines and the home isolations and finally getting negative - I would remember that ordeal. Although my condition didn't detoriate, the often heard stories of other patients definitely paused lot of questions.
Marriage:
- Two posts have already been written - one for timelie, the other for decision making processes.
- I enjoyed the 'breaking the news' to different people aspect of this story and how different people reacted. There were both positive and negative expressions.
- The diary pages of Oct-Nov-Dec to be referred for the marriage preparation
- The letter to Nina- my first attempt to write a love letter
- Two chapters needed to be closed - Trish's seeing someone in Delhi to her engagement news and then cancellation of engagment news made a closing story. Bish's arrogancy cum cursing went to peak when i blocked her; she is terrible and closure was not good.
Finance:
1. Share market went down (Sensex at 28 K level) during March, I managed to buy a few stocks. I did mistake by selling Reliance and Sun Pharma (with profit though). Just on the next day of selling Reliance, the news of Facebook investing in Reliance surfaced and stock prices went zoo...om.
2. I did a total worth calculation on my birthday which exceeds 1 Cr. I was so happy. However, my expenditure started shooting up. In the month of November, my expenditure crossed around 13 lakh
Non-Profits:
1. Great work done with the revival of the Xomidhan bank account, activating the Internet Banking. I was happy like a kid when I figured out the child account issue with the Xomidhan Finance gmail ID. The CA audit of last 8-9 years are also done at only INR 3000/- (via Moina's friend and thanks to Kangkan). Also, managed one beneficiary for MNM Trust for ScholarAssist and total of 4 beneficiaries for the year. The annual reports are completed. Overall, it was an amazing year for Xomidhan. The only thing left was the renewal of the society registration.
2. I tried reviving BXX. On my initiative, two conf calls were conducted. However, there is not much movement after those calls. The diversity and other engagements of the group members, the Govt directive on renewing society registration, lack of teamwork are some of the reasons for this failed attempt of BXX revival.
3. From MNM Trust side, there is not much activity. Hosting Homen Borgohain Sir and Reeta Chowdhary baideu were two important moments. For the entire lockdown period, the library provided me the much needed space to sit with a calm head and work throughout. I can't thank myself enough for creating such a space. Many young kids such as Pushpa, Karna etc came in contact with me via the library during this period. Also, bought a new steel almirah from Agia, modified the wooden old almirag. On trustee level, inclusion of Rahul bhini as trustee was a big event of the year (on 26 July).
Travel:
It was worst year from travel point of view. I still have the 3 travel tickets pending with me. Below are the limited travels undertaken in the year:
1) Srinagar, Baramula , Tangmarg, Gulmarg, Mirgund (31 Jan) - official visit for monitoring
2) Bangalore Trip (13 March) - RPL monitoring, Binny, Madat da, NESA get together, Sri Sri ashram visit,
3) The great/longest home visit 22 March
Webinars:
1. The BSG webinar initiated by Briar. I was well prepared, did demo session at office, Kaushik was there to take care of logistics. It was on 4 March and went well.
2. Best selling super power author _ I attended on 9 June with full concentration mode.
3. Why to study Love and Humour (by Ashoka University) on 8 April 2020
4. The webinar at SB Deorah college (278+ attendees) on 20 June; thanks to Dharmendra Da
5. The webinar at Jorhat College on initiation of Dr. Devabrata Sarmah Sir on 7 July
6. The webinar at KK Handique state open university on initiation of Dola Borkakoti , friend of Megha
7. The lecture at Moolya Foundation on public policy via Ankit on 5 Sept
8. The ILO webinar on RPL on 14 October
9. The Raijor Dol webinar on initiation of Kuldeep with Debanga and others
Important Dates:
1 January: The year started with a bang- a decade for Xomidhan
19 January: Bhogali Bihu celebration at Shrimanta Sankardeva Bhawan, Tapan's family first visit at Agia
29 January: Prog with Gaurav Gogoi and Deep Kalra; evening at M&E pub celebration
2 February: Election campaign for Manish Sishodia with Yash
15-16 February: Experimental weekend, not so great though
24 February: Broadband wifi installation at Mahipalpur home for mainly BSG seminar (4 March)
5 March: First time I wrote about Corona virus, little did I know about future
20-22 March: the decision making and finally arriving in Assam amidst Janata Curfew
31 March: Dada clearing promotion exam and PMKVY2.0 getting ended
23 May: Agia LP school project - first article collection date
4 June: My first visit to Nina's place, to Nichinta
6 June: Nabajyoti taking video interview at library
14 June: Land measurement at Mirza
27 June: LP School, Rampur & Nichinta
18 July: The pork treat at Badungduppa's new campus
29 August: Visit to Barpeta Kirtan ghar and three interviews
21 Sept: Day for resumption of skill training pan India on paper
2 Oct: Sualkuchi trip for buying cloths
10 Oct: Moina's furniture order day trip to Dhupdhara
23 Oct: Upanayan at Baitamari got accomplished today
26 Oct: The marriage date fixing ceremony at Nichinta
1 Nov: Bride's family's home darshan
14 Nov: First witness of elephant tragedy at Nichinta, went to visit, but returned from road
21 Nov: First trip with Nina to Ghy alone
24 Nov: Got the new phone Redmi 9 Prime
2 Dec: Tested positive for Covid-19
15-16 Dec: Under the Sal tree festival cum registration happened today
27 Dec: Nina's launch of SattriyaCorner, বিয়াৰ সন্মত
Office:
WFH, no appraisal, MSP touching ceiling of irritation, SANKALP RPL, GKRA RPL, NE Cluster discussion, Geetanjli's sudden entry and silent exit, breaking the news to office people on 27 Nov
People: New, Revived, Death
1. New: Heemarani Baruah (Assamese language researcher at DU), Ankita Barooah (BSG aspirant, Xomidhan counselor later), Honey Pamnani(I ended up writing reco for her MPP at BSG) , Uddipta R. Baruah, Ajoy bhini
2. Death- father of Sunil Bihari Da, Mahesh engineer, Tulasi Peha, Juri's Mother- Chaya baideu, Tarun Gogoi
3. Revived- Anul K Nath, Manash Sarma,
4. Nina's side- Deepshikha, Anulekha, Pompi, Chitralekha, Naba, Shankar Da, Swarnasikha,
5. In focus: Dhireswar Da's wife
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In summary, I want to thank God for the exceptional year gifted to me. I hope the decisions I have taken in this year will prove to be most fruitful.
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