Finally, after 2 years, I am writing my yearly piece again. 2020 was a year that would change the course of the future in a way that’s really hard to imagine. In January 2020, I was attending an event organized by Deutsche Bahn(Germany Railways) on the usage of artificial intelligence for traffic planning and route optimization. One person from the crowd had asked the presenter if the railways are capable of adapting to a changing traffic pattern in case of a disease spread, and he gave the example of Wuhan. That was the first time I had heard of the disease. Back then, Covid-19 had not been declared as a pandemic yet. Within a few months hospitals globally were getting overcrowded with covid patients, millions were losing jobs, people were dying on the streets with a lack of food. Globalization which was supposed to solve problems forced billions of people into a bigger problem. Deeply impacted by the things that happened in the year, I decided not to write my yearly blog. As it turned out, 2021 was equally scarring as 2020, if not the worse. But somehow we managed to pick out the good stuffs. Like my last year-end blog, again, in this blog, I will focus on the things that I wanted to improve.
Interpersonal relationships- Last time I wrote, I was happy that I could reconnect with people after a long time. I am happy that I could keep connections with most of them. Covid gave us the opportunity to introspect and move towards a healthier family lifestyle. It taught us to work with family. We, the NIT Durgapur buddies also started our own podcast – Ulto palta Podcast. It had its own background music and video introduction. Designed by Deepanjan. Although the podcast failed, we all connected strongly because of the time spent on these Skype calls. Here is the YouTube link to one of our episodes.
Travelling – The Covid paralysed the whole world and forced us to stay indoors. But thankfully in Germany, the restrictions were not that strict compared to the rest of the world. We could make small trips when the covid cases were low. For Ankita this period was really tough, she worked at 4 places in this period. Hats off. But even with such difficulties, we managed to make a few budget trips and memories. I also managed to visit India twice. Here are some pictures from all the travels. I hope this year we will be able to travel to some nice places and gain some local experiences.
Reading more books – I wrote last time that I wanted to improve my reading habit. I am glad, that I managed to read 18 books in the last two years. Here is the name of all of them. Tim und Strupi- Reise auf der Mond, Speed reading – how to double your reading speed, Spirituality and Science, Remote Work Playbook, Vagabonds Of East (unpublished), Raavan – The enemy of Aryavrata, A thousand Splendid Sun, Lustiges Taschenbuch – Die Formel des Reichtum, Everything is going to kill Everybody, The Namesake, River of Smoke, Burmese Diary, How to avoid a climate disaster, Flood of Fire, Miligan: My role in Hitler’s fall, The Telomere Effect, Murshidabad theke Palassey. I started the span with a German book and ended the span with a Bengali book. My first Bengali book, which had only 32 pages. Yet, I will consider it as my achievement. I want to increase the Bengali book count and learn more about my roots.
Taking less on my plate – This is one thing which I could not manage. Covid gave a lot of free time and hence gave me the opportunity to take even more on my plate. At times, it was fun and at times it was very exhausting. But I am happy with how it all ended. At a personal level, we managed to help the people of Sundarban and Assam during floods. At a professional level we managed to win a hackathon in Chile, our team managed to win space awards organized by AZO on behalf of the European Space Agency and many other things. The things are ordered for the next two years hence, I am sure that as I turn 30 I will start taking less on my plate. But then again, who knows what’s in store for the future?
Health – This section I want to improve in the upcoming days. I want to resume my football practice and music practice. The book Telomere Effect had a deep effect on me and I want to improve my telomere length.
So 2020 and 2021 was mixed year. Some bad memories and some good. Many people had a really rough two years and compared to that I had a really nice year overall. Wish you all a delightful start to the new year, hope the coming days will be exciting and healthy.
Greenspeed
Jeet Biswas 