2014...

Jai Guru Deva,

2014 had witnessed me getting promoted to a manager and on personal side I had become a father. My son Sathvik was born on 26th Oct 2014. This is the biggest event for 2014.

the year started with my promotion getting confirmed and the scope of my work had increased with time. I started taking newer responsibilities and as expected my work load also increased :) This did not bother me much as I was prepared for it but it does bother my wife a lot as I got averse to going out on weekends. On the other side, we had witnessed few escalations in the forecasting that I am managing and I started building a base for better managing the forecast activities.

Come March-April I had travelled to Vancouver and that was a memorable trip. I could not forget the view of Mt.Hood when I came out of my hotel room and see out side.. that was a manifestation of purity of mother nature and one of the greatest sources of joy for me in that whole tour. On  a professional note the tour was not a good one as we didnt had proper conversations during that trip. However, it was financially beneficial thing for me as I got a decent amount of money for that trip.

Once I am back from my trip we realized that our lives are heading towards a much greater change as we got a confirmation that my wife is carrying. Me and my wife were very excited about that and more concerned about how we are going to manage the delivery. This is particularly critical because my wife is apprehensive about the facilities in her native place and I am not willing to have it in Bangalore as I am doubtful of my capability to manage any crisis scenario. Also, I was not hopeful that my in laws would come and support in any emergency scenario.

From April to end of year I had worked on the most tiring project of my career. I clearly knew that I am asked to hit a moving target and make it worse, the target keep changing every other week :( I should accept that this is one of the most frustrating period of my career. Even when my son was born on 26th Oct I could not take my paternity leave because of the commitments from office. However, because of the flexibility of HP I was able to work from home and manage things during that time. 

Second half of the year was more tiring than the first half. With me shifting the house second time in six months I was exhausted to the core physically and emotionally. This is not the first time that I did so much of work but somehow i felt very tired. As of now, in any typical weekend I have no inclination to do any work. I am bringing vegetables and groceries also on one of the week days. Another thing that I am worried is the insomnia. I am not able to catch sleep till late in the night and also not able to get up early. Sometimes I am getting awake because of some bad dream or some other such thing and then not able to catch sleep again. Some times I wonder where my life is leading upto and I am little concerned about this. However, I have the confidence that once I revert back to basics and start my spiritual practices, I can definitely bounce back. If my life has taught me anything it is that dedicated effort will not fail under any circumstances. 

On the other side, I had attempted UPSC civils exams in August but miserably failed to clear the test. I had been to Coimbattore to write the exam and stayed at my cousin's house. Its probably after a decade or so that I had met my cousin's family. I felt good about that. Then I had shifted to a new house which is quite small when I compare to my own house in e-city. But the thing I liked about this house is, my house owners are very good people and they feed cows every day. Yes, everyday means everyday around 10AM atleast 5-6 cows comes to our house and my house owner's family feeds them. My belief is, life around such people will be definitely satvik. May be thats why my wife's delivered went without any glitch. Everything got arranged like some plan but we never planned it.

On a financial front, this year has been "OK". I had a good pay rise at the starting of the year and then the promotion adjustment nonetheless my expenses also increased similarly. Cloudnine had their prices and cloud nine and we were left grounded :) Also, changing house two times is really very expensive. we had spoiled somethings, we lost some. so all in all, a financially challenging year. However, for the first time in 3years I had payed back some of my home loan principal.

Last not least, I request everybody to bless my little son. I had named him as Sathvik!!

Sarvejana Sukhinobhavantu,

-Karthik