An year has come to an end. A decade has come to an end. And what a remarkable decade that was. In the last 10 years, so much changed in the world, and specifically in India, that it is difficult to believe that was only 10 years ago. I am going to write down what all has changed in the last decade in the bullet points that follow.

When this decade started –

• Bill Clinton was still the US President. Can’t believe it, George Bush was sworn in only in 2001
• People used to listen music on Sony WalkMan, as there was no iPod, which was launched only in 2001
• The Twin Towers were still standing on the New York skyline, and nobody cared about Al-Qaeda or Osama.
• US was not at war. Now they are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saddam Hussein is dead.
• Kalpana Chawla was still alive, her space shuttle Columbia exploded on re-entry in Feb 2003
• The 2004 tsunami was yet to happen, which would wipe out hundreds of thousands of lives.
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were still together, they separated in 2005 after which Brangelina came.
• Major cities were safe around the world. London, Bali and Madrid were bombed in the decade
• Gay marriages were illegal even in the US, with California legalizing it in 2005 and even Indian Supreme Court passing a landmark judgement a few years ago.
• There was no Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia and Gmail. Need I say anything more…
• Phones used to be like 2kg bricks. The decade saw them getting smaller to tiny, before getting big again with the advent of smartphones.
• There was no iPhone, which Steve Jobs unveiled in 2007, ushering in a revolution in touch screen phones.
• People still used to use desktops, before laptops took over desktop sales by a big margin in this decade.
• Lehman Brothers, Enron, Worldcom were still functioning companies. They all filed for bankruptcy in the last decade.
• Mumbai have not seen the train bombings and the Nov 2008 attacks, which got the attention of the whole world.
• Michael Jackson was still alive, and not being charged with child molestation
• India has still not done its Pokhram nuclear tests, which changed the South Asia defence scenario totally.
• India’s growth was still not 8%.
• I was still in Delhi, and in school. As it later happened, I was to spend 4 years in Jaipur, then 3 again in Delhi/Noida and now 2 and counting in Bangalore

I certainly must have missed some very important landmarks in the last 10 years, make sure to add them in the comments!!