The Year that was and the Year that Will Be….
And as the current year runs its last stretch before it can expel its final shuddering breaths to become: the Year that Was, a reference in the past, a collection of wooly memories; everything within us - the human parallel to the animal instinct of marking territory – invents ways of marking this time. Time intrinsically linked to our sense of our chronological existence, which at a deeper level is an uneasy acknowledgement of our mortality. So that the very celebration of this ‘ time’ holds a kind of quiet keening, a sense of loss, which we try every which way to subsume under a collective , concentrated kind of forgetfulness.
This induced amnesia is expressed best through a party and any invented excuses for a celebration. And so we have imported some, concocted some, traditionally followed some, while some remain with us as a hungovered presence from our colonial past, specially while marking this time of the year.
There is, to begin with , a mad rush of engagements and weddings preceding
the end of the year and running well into it, which sets the tone for this party mood. Then there is the weather. Days of glorious sunshine and a marvelous drop in temperatures. Begone heat and humidity and perpetually deodorized BO smells! Now is the time to air our woolens and the silks - the heritage pashminas and the jackets scrounged at an upmarket store during last season’s sale.
Besides, the appearance of a marvelous range of culinary delights both in the market place and on one’s table, coupled with the hedonistic delight of paying tribute to Bachchus , so much more excessively than during the spare summer months, combines to inject a rosier take on life .
So lunches at the club get translated into impromptu toasts to precious winter weekends - a celebration with family and friends, some of whom on their annual visit to the country. Every outing demands a range of our best entrepreneurial and coordination skills. Yes, to catch the eye of harassed waiters, sprint across the tables and occupied chairs to get to the bar, to claim one’s order from the barbq stations and more, are inherent to the experience of catching the sun at the club.
This is also the time for countdowns, of Year End Awards, of every journal worth its cover price, giving us a summing up of the year , the events that made and marred it and those dear departed - some who have left the world just a wee bit eroded of élan and chutzpah, like Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor, or just plain relieved of the groaning weights of the likes of Kim Jong II.
All of which injects a very generous vial of nostalgia into one’s mood as one faces the last day of the calendar.
And so in this mood of nostalgia I am reminded of the year end party during my Calcutta ( not Kolkata) days, more precisely the one on the 31st . This was the event that was high on enthusiasm but mired in dilemma . The biggest poser was always, ‘ where to go?’ the existential question becoming more and more central to one’s increasing stress levels as the days flew off the depleting calendar. Private party or club and if club, which one? And if private , the questions only branched into fibrous ends of some more. Who, where, what? A different avatar of SWOT analysis was invented to test the varying parameters that needed to be added and churned in the cauldron, which would throw up just that right recipe for that perfect party. Oh, so many things to be done and as the day came closer the frenzy became edgier, rife with anxiety and yet laced with the joys of preparation.
And then would come the evening of the last day of the year. The ensuing hours seemed to whirl in an increasingly dizzying spin: Dressing in one’s special New Year’s Eve party glitter; making those last minute checks to ensure that all was well – the kebabs, the whiskey and the most important synchronization of all – the music. Light, music , speakers , music wallah all in perfect tune with each other, for they were the bulwarks on which the party’s success depended.
The party began. The hours passed - the pounding feet on the dance floor gathered in frenzy , the music in tempo, the crowds in their raucousness, until the musical flow was staunched by the dj’s breathless intervention. 10 -9-8- -7 . The crowd chanted in choric unison, waiting for that Moment to touch us all.
And as the lights went out and the world around me whistled to greet the year, I would close my eyes, suspended just for that moment in that transitory phase , hugging that which had gone by, while tasting the newness of the unseen and the promise of that was to be.
So it was then and so it is now as the moments gather to greet a new year and a new beginning.
A Very Happy 2012 – Happiness, Joy and Fulfilment to all.
This induced amnesia is expressed best through a party and any invented excuses for a celebration. And so we have imported some, concocted some, traditionally followed some, while some remain with us as a hungovered presence from our colonial past, specially while marking this time of the year.
There is, to begin with , a mad rush of engagements and weddings preceding
the end of the year and running well into it, which sets the tone for this party mood. Then there is the weather. Days of glorious sunshine and a marvelous drop in temperatures. Begone heat and humidity and perpetually deodorized BO smells! Now is the time to air our woolens and the silks - the heritage pashminas and the jackets scrounged at an upmarket store during last season’s sale.
Besides, the appearance of a marvelous range of culinary delights both in the market place and on one’s table, coupled with the hedonistic delight of paying tribute to Bachchus , so much more excessively than during the spare summer months, combines to inject a rosier take on life .
So lunches at the club get translated into impromptu toasts to precious winter weekends - a celebration with family and friends, some of whom on their annual visit to the country. Every outing demands a range of our best entrepreneurial and coordination skills. Yes, to catch the eye of harassed waiters, sprint across the tables and occupied chairs to get to the bar, to claim one’s order from the barbq stations and more, are inherent to the experience of catching the sun at the club.
This is also the time for countdowns, of Year End Awards, of every journal worth its cover price, giving us a summing up of the year , the events that made and marred it and those dear departed - some who have left the world just a wee bit eroded of élan and chutzpah, like Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor, or just plain relieved of the groaning weights of the likes of Kim Jong II.
All of which injects a very generous vial of nostalgia into one’s mood as one faces the last day of the calendar.
And so in this mood of nostalgia I am reminded of the year end party during my Calcutta ( not Kolkata) days, more precisely the one on the 31st . This was the event that was high on enthusiasm but mired in dilemma . The biggest poser was always, ‘ where to go?’ the existential question becoming more and more central to one’s increasing stress levels as the days flew off the depleting calendar. Private party or club and if club, which one? And if private , the questions only branched into fibrous ends of some more. Who, where, what? A different avatar of SWOT analysis was invented to test the varying parameters that needed to be added and churned in the cauldron, which would throw up just that right recipe for that perfect party. Oh, so many things to be done and as the day came closer the frenzy became edgier, rife with anxiety and yet laced with the joys of preparation.
And then would come the evening of the last day of the year. The ensuing hours seemed to whirl in an increasingly dizzying spin: Dressing in one’s special New Year’s Eve party glitter; making those last minute checks to ensure that all was well – the kebabs, the whiskey and the most important synchronization of all – the music. Light, music , speakers , music wallah all in perfect tune with each other, for they were the bulwarks on which the party’s success depended.
The party began. The hours passed - the pounding feet on the dance floor gathered in frenzy , the music in tempo, the crowds in their raucousness, until the musical flow was staunched by the dj’s breathless intervention. 10 -9-8- -7 . The crowd chanted in choric unison, waiting for that Moment to touch us all.
And as the lights went out and the world around me whistled to greet the year, I would close my eyes, suspended just for that moment in that transitory phase , hugging that which had gone by, while tasting the newness of the unseen and the promise of that was to be.
So it was then and so it is now as the moments gather to greet a new year and a new beginning.
A Very Happy 2012 – Happiness, Joy and Fulfilment to all.
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