Year 2008, a learning experience

The year 2008 has been a bag of mixed emotions.A girl right into her early years of the state of mind called 'womanhood', it felt as if every major and minor event taking place in and around me seemed to wrap me around with a new and fresh outlook towards life.
Earlier this year, days seemed more casual, calm and running in its own course. Each day was a new learning experience. Older ties remained intact and fresh ones added the much needed spice in life. Things here and there were simple add-ons to my daily cup of coffee. There was nothing like the joy of learning, absorbing fresh ideas, modifying and redefining older views and feeling the greatness and freshness of maturing at every level. The major achievement was penetrating deeper into human brains, understanding different individual thinking processes, the like and kind, and seriously nothing feels better than the feeling that 'you understand better'.
Then came an era of blasts, literal and serious ones, here and there. Someday in Jaipur, Hyderabad, the other day Bangalore, a series in Ahmedabad and Surat and still a couple more in connaught place etc in Delhi.
Life seemed insecure, at serious threat. Everyday saw more and more people terrorised, panic stricken and traumatised.
What followed next was a global gloom.Wall street crash! Lehman Brothers bankrupt! just to spread the message 'nothing can be taken for granted'. Stock prices came down, rather rushed down. People committed suicides in utter despair. The once unstoppable growth took a U turn in global front. Markets for jobs came down,only to demoralise and disappoint fresh graduates. Words like 'bears', 'cost cutting', and 'bankruptcy' were ones even infants were aware of.
Running almost parallel was an era of religious outbreak, blasphemy and still more groups of religious extremists. The country looked more divided. The essence of unity and being 'secular'( a word described by the dictionary as not connected/related to any religion)seemed to have lost its colour. Life seemed actually at threat. Religion was not meant to pacify oneself but remained to be another error of the divisive society.
Excitement and curiosity also came to play as one witnessed the neck to neck competition between the Democrats and
Republicans in US. The world finally stood up to celebrate the first African-American president with the 'Obama factor' having played it part.
The people had not even recovered from the wake of terrorism in different old and new forms,that a fresh round of terrorist attacks in Mumbai took its hold. Never before had people experienced such an open threat to life from foreign agents. It ended finally but with effects such as the number of post-traumatic disorder cases rising sharply throughout the city.
This year now comes to a close, an experience of learning, caution, and trauma all blended into one. Yet, I still look forward to a fresh year, for fresh ideas with a 'hope' that has kept me going till date.