We celebrated the sixth anniversary of Deccan Chronicle amid much heat and despair last March, albeit without losing hope for better days ahead.
There were dark clouds hanging low. The Spectrum scam was a huge embarrassment as even close buddies in the Fourth Estate elsewhere in the country poked fun at Tamil Nadu.
And all the talk about family rule in the corridors of power reached even the wayside tea stalls in remote pockets of Tamil Nadu. And then the Assembly elections took place and the regime changed.
An unprecedented crackdown hit the land mafia as a result of one of the first initiatives of the new AIADMK government.
Predictably, most of the accused in a long string of cases filed by the special land-grab cells in all the district police headquarters turned out to be linked to the erstwhile ruling party. And even more predictably they complained that they were framed due to political vendetta.
A few senior police officers, who held sway in the previous regime, too got knocked out. Expected, perhaps.
The seat of power shifted too, not just figuratively; as the new government decided it would not work from the Rs 1,200 crore fancy structure that the predecessor had anointed in the Omanthurar government estate.
The lovely bay view that greeted Ms J. Jayalalithaa as she took charge at Fort St George was nothing new for the third-time CM. Critics did get excited when she shifted senior bureaucrats and shuffled the ministerial team a few times, but their barbs would not distract the perfectionist as she went about her job.
The biggest jolt since the regime change happened shortly before Christmas. Some say she was getting ready for the thunderbolt but when she dropped the bomb, the shockwaves rocked both the administration and the political corridors.
Banishment of longtime friend Sasikala from Poes Garden was celebrated wholeheartedly by the AIADMK lieutenants. Senior babus began to breathe easier as now there was no extra-constitutional manipulator to take orders from.
"I was in Tiruchy during the last government and only I know how much of harassment I had faced before being shifted out due to the local minister's pressure. Now I am able to function freely.
And this is the overall feeling among all senior officers across the state", said a top bureaucrat, speaking about the easing of environment amid the IAS/IPS officers since the regime change and then the purge of the Mannargudi crowd.
Ms Jayalalithaa's Vision 2023 document speaks robustly about her determination to deliver better living standards for the people who gave her such a convincing mandate.
As she put it, this is the first time that a government in the state was embarking upon an elaborate strategic programme, stretched through a decade, to deliver on infrastructure growth on a massive scale. The goals and theme of the vision also promised more jobs, besides "peace, prosperity and protection of the vulnerable".
The AIADMK supremo has seen what the electorates have done to Modi, Nitish and Badal for delivering good governance. She would like to prove she is not an inch inferior.
Knowing Jayalalithaa, that may not be so tough. And who knows, when DC lights the nine candles on its anniversary cake of 2014, she might be lighting a candle in the Capital.