Time Square, New York

Whether you choose to watch the ball dropping from your television or live; Times Square, NYC is synonymous with New Year's Eve. For the 104th time, the ball will drop on the night of the 31st**. Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and others are performing this year**. 

On a personal note, 2011 was good and went by too fast. Usually I host the New Year's Eve party. How ever, I was tempted to grab the very first invite I received. A friend of mine from school is hosting it and the theme is Casino Night, with evening entertainment provided by the guests. The girls (aka us) are performing the song from "Rang De Basanti". We took the steps from the flash mob performance in Mumbai CST station for the same song. Much to the ridicule of my kids and husband, we have been "practicing" for the performance. 

Each family usually performs a dance or a spoof of a movie scene. I am looking at either "Yamma Yamma", a song from the movie Shaan or something related to the latest rage "Kolaveri Di". Any other ideas ...let me know.

** source : TimesSquare Official Website.

2011 at a Glance

Song Of The Year - Kolaveri Di, a Tamil song from no where (sung by an actor, Dhanush and music by a new music director) gained immense popularity by means of posting and re-posting on FB, twitter and other social media sites. It made headlines in one of the top Indian newspapers, The Hindu and finally found its way to being named 'Top Song of 2011' by CNN. Is Grammys the next for Kolaveri Di?

Times Person Of The Year : "The Protestor". This is my personal favorite. People all over the world stood up to things bigger than themselves and rocked those in power. Aptly awarded by Times.

Word Of The Year : Humble Brag. The urban dictionary defines it as bragging about something with out either realizing it or doing it subliminally. Most face book messages and blog posts are humble brags by nature. An exaggerated example would be "I am so tired of waiting in the line for the David Letterman show".

See any trend there? All of the above are driven by people. There is so much information out there on blogs, FB and twitter on things like home decor to scripting apple apps to parenting choices. It is tough not to become copycats and blindly follow what others are doing. What works for one in personal life, friendship, parenting, relationship or career may never be the right choice for you. Make your own rules, even if its copied or inspired; tweak it to suit you and where you are at, in life. Leaving you with a simple yet profound thought from the genius of the century.

Life is too short to lead another person's life - Steve Jobs.

Happy New Year - 2012