It has been an interesting year – and we all know what the Chinese say about interesting times.

In Indian Politics – citizens sent back another coaltion. The secular, middle of the road, sometimes muddled Cogress is in power, with a mish mash of contradictory allies.Sonia Gandhi played the best game of political chess. Her Queen sacrifice checkmated the BJP.

The BJP seems to have pressed down the self destruct button and is slowly unravelling. Uma Bharati continued to provide comic relief. Narasimha Rao died a week ago – and history will probably remember him far better than his contemporaries did. The highlight of his administration was economic liberalisation, the stain on his government – Ayodhya.

In world politics – the Americans have voted back George Bush. Somehow the adage “people get the government that they deserve” comes to mind. If a nation can be brainwashed enough to believe that the Iraqi invasion was justified because they bombed WTC – then you have serious questions about the ability of citizens to participate in a democratic electoral process.

Somehow all the posturing of the high and mighy seemed rather puny in front of nature’s anger that decimated most of south east and south asia. All the nationalist stands in the world make no sense when an undersea earthquake affected people across national boundaries. The world now knows a new word – tsunami and it joins SARS and Guantanamo as the temporaray topic of universal discussion.

Professionally, the year has been good. Cogito TV finally has a show on air on a mainstream channel. A high profile show with a high profile guest list. If onely the three of us knew how to be smooth and shallow – we would have probably made a fortune by now. Playing the game with a code of honur is probably going to add a couple of years to the goal. But, it is worth the wait.

Personally, being chief slave to a female dog, who has delusions of being an empress is a pain. I guess as i have commented elsewhere here, don’t name your dog raja aur rani unless you want to be bossed by a 4 legged mutt. No friendships have been lost this year. A few nice people met.

And life goes on…