So, that rare thing is happening. That thing which happens only once a year. My WhatsApp is finally buzzing. My conversations otherwise include my college group, where my only role is to mute and unmute the conversation (people on that group typ lyk diz, vich mks me wnt to strngle thm). It also includes my best friend, where I get excited about everything remotely human and send 20 messages in 20 seconds, she checks them 48 hours later, and I pray she won’t block me. I love how equal we are.
But now I have suddenly become popular because New Year’s Eve is approaching. Which also magically means that New Year is approaching. So I have started receiving messages like the following
“The year is ending. Please tell me what do you really think of me”. How do the two sentences have any relation? You might as well send “Star Wars is amazing. The cut off at IIT Bombay is no social life.” Why does someone suddenly need to know my humble and honest opinion of them just because the year is ending? Are they dying? Or am I? Then there are these messages that say “Blue means you like me. Red means you love me. Orange means you want to friend zone me. Purple means you want me to die. Green means you want to have eco friendly babies. What colour am I to you? Reply me first”
Now who decides this colour coding? Is there an International Insecurity Colour Index For Jobless People? Come January 1st, and people who never ever talk to you, and to whom you extend the same courtesy, will wish you a very happy and prosperous new year from them and their family, their ancestors and Yakub Memon, because even bomb blast convicts are very caring that way. Messages have all these amazing decorations, creative fonts and emojis used only once a year. There has got to be a WhatsApp University where all this is taught. I refuse to believe that people in India actually exude that level of creativity by themselves and yet Durjoy Dutta is the bestselling author in this country. Although, WhatsApp University must be a lot of fun. “This semester we will be covering last seen. But your internal examination syllabus won’t have the blue tick, so skip that.”
One of the most popular new year trends, is of course the new year resolution. The New Year Resolution. Because on January 1st, you get magical powers to stop being a laid back potato and become the CEO of Unrealistichopes.org. We humans are experts at deluding ourselves. On 4th January at 6 am we will realize that this resolution nonsense is not working and we will resolve to try again next year, mainly because for the next 361 days, you can chill the hell out of life like you always have. I am proud to report that I have resolved, in various years, to wake up early, to tease my brother less, to study more, and even more proud to report that I followed up on all of them, albeit for different reasons. The first and the third solved themselves because I chose to do CA. The second one worked out because my brother hit puberty. Really hard. So I’m excusing him on that count. This year my resolution is to not have any resolutions, which sadly sounds like a Salman dialogue, but is true.
Then, of course, there are the much coveted New Year’s Eve parties, which can roughly be translated to “I sweat 3 kilos this time. You?” That’s just how crowded all of these parties are. Since the author hails from Mumbai, which is as spacious as action movies obey the laws of physics. Some of the bigger parties feature prominent guests, such as that actress who acted alongside a star a decade ago, and that singer who sounds exactly like another singer, but didn’t get famous.
My complex has a congregation of people who jump up and down to the latest chart busters and brain melters and shout and scream every other minute amidst sweating more than a coal miner. The reason why I used that particular description is because calling it a party would be a little too ambitious. The arrangement is extremely uncomfortable, the crowd fluctuating between unfashionable, drunk, fashionable, and hungry, not necessarily in that order. The food is stale, and conversations are redundant as they are drowned out by music whose tune is annoyingly good and lyrics, mind blowingly bad. Then again, those who listen to party tracks for the lyrics are the same people who think every South Indian speaks like Deepika Padukone in Chennai Express and people who watch football because the green grass is very nice to watch.
At this new year ‘party’, I also meet my friends from school, which is a mixed bag. The upside is that I get to meet some people whom I genuinely like talking to, and the downside is that such people are 1 in 5. When the other 4 approach, I have to dance in such a way that I move away silently, which is difficult because dancing and subtlety are two things I am very bad at. I also meet people with whom I would have liked to stay in touch, but couldn’t because of complicated reasons like laziness and forgetfulness.
What I would really like to know is, how many people actually want to party that night, and how many do it just out of societal pressure. Societal pressure. Wow, I made partying sound like arranged marriage. No wonder the author is not a party animal.
But enough of all this nonsense, because the author is going to Goa to bring the New Year, which is such a radical idea and is not at all mainstream.
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Written by Sriram Mani, intern.
Could relate to each and every word written Sriram. Thoroughly enjoyed. Keep writing.