A year of weak leaks

To wrap 2010 in 400 words is like asking Pamela Anderson to wear size 26. Especially when you're writing about a year that's as 'bad as it can get', you just don't want your pen to stop, or rather finger hitting alphabets on keyboard.

So what is it that comes to my mind when I think of the last 364 days?

Has to be scams, to which Indian taxpayers lost almost 20,00,000 crore, Twitter which cost Shashi Tharoor his ministry and Lalit Modi's his baby, the IPL; rape figures that simply refuse to shrink, swamis going 'sex'y, 3Gu00a0-- which never took off in the manner it should have and corporate lobbying. And yes, how can I forget onions at Rs 80 and Rakhi Ka Insaaf (perhaps the worst chapter in Indian television).

It's not that nothing positive happened in the year but the magnitude of loss due to scams and subsequent embarrassment was so high that even if you try hard to end the year on a positive note, you just can't.
Probably the only good things that happened to the country came from Bollywood and Wiki Leaks

The year started on a 'racist' note when an Indian man was set on fire in Australia giving fuel to racially motivated crimes. Even in India, Indians were not safe. The German Bakery blast, Dantewada Bus bombing, Air India Express Flight 812 mishap, Leh floods and Varanasi Bomb took many innocent lives.

Probably the only good things that happened to the country came from Bollywood and Wiki Leaks. SRK refused to apologise to Shiv Sena for supporting the inclusion of Pakistani players in the IPL.

It was also a year of item numbers and small budgets films. If ever there's an Oscar for item numbers, Munni must get it. Even Shiela Ki Jawaani was super cool. Tere Bin Laden, Peepli Live, Phas Gaye Re Obama and Love Sex aur Dhoka were successful films.

I hope, in 2011, Akshay Kumar will stick to comedy and not serious flicks like Tasveer, RGV wouldn't come out with Rakht Charitra III, Aishwarya Rai, for once, will shed her plastic smile and Karan Johar will find new faces for his talk show.

Even Internet-based social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and Orkut witnessed several changes. While Facebook finally overtook Orkut in India, Twitter grabbed eyeballs for controversial posts by politicos and celebrities. But the winner on cyberspace is Wikileaks, the whistle blowers' portal that brought much embarrassment to US and even India.

Next year, if again I get a chance to write the closing piece on New Year, I hope it will be all positive and less of cribbing.