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Whose New Year is it?
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CELEBRATION There’s so much tailored around the New Year, that it’s hard to keep away even if you want to. Will there be a time when we get excited about the real things? asks SUDIPTO MONDAL
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Photo: K.R. Deepak
Party on There’s no chance that you can miss the omnipresent celebrations
Prepare for the same grand charade to play out all over again. Prepare to read stories which start with, “It is that time of the year”. Prepare to look surprised when the ‘party animals’ of the country announce, “New Yea
r’s Eve is a time for the family”. Prepare to forget their earlier statements when the same people appear again to tell you what a great time they had partying with friends in Ibiza, Goa or Timbuktu.
Do not let your national pride be affected if Goa doesn’t appear in the list of ‘ten top party destinations of the world’ this year – it is a biennial game anyway.
Whether Las Vegas emerges as the number one destination or not; “Do not miss all the action this New Year’s Eve at…,” will still remain the number one tagline this year too. Perhaps they do not know just how difficult it is to actually ‘miss all the action’.
Imagine the lengths you would have to go to completely miss the action – to consciously shut yourself off, while the world clamours for your attention. If you were to undertake this arduous mission, the first casualty would have to be the television.
A high-pitched, breathless voice reminds you that there is still the radio. You log out of the airwaves and trash all the newspapers and magazines. Beep-beep, it is your mobile service provider, pleading with you to enter a contest and win free couples passes to the hottest/coolest party in town.
Just as you switch your cell phone off, the landline starts ringing, it is your friend: “Why have you switched off your phone? I have passes for a New Year’s party, the best in town. I won’t be able to go. Why don’t you go instead? It is just Rs. 3,000 for a couple, unlimited drinks on the house.”
Since the phone won’t stop ringing you decide to get out. Big mistake. Posters, hoardings, pamphlets, loudspeakers, they are all out to get you.
You scamper back indoors, unhinge the landline and announce to your loved ones your plan, to not have a plan, this New Year. Mutiny. The “you cannot do this to me” look informs you that people around you don’t exactly think the world of your bright idea.
Prepare to scream when your 15-year-old asks you for permission to go out partying. Prepare to throw a tantrum when your “old-fashioned” parents ask you to stay at home and watch TV on December 31.
In a few days from now, you will, in all likelihood, be torn between spending New Year’s Eve with friends, family, colleagues and yourself.
Maybe you will go to an exotic location to spend New Year’s Eve. Maybe you will have the time of your life. Maybe you will win the lucky-dip competition at least in this year’s party.
Maybe you will decide to stay sober at this year’s party. Unlike last year’s accident, which happened because you were drunk, this year the accident might happen because the person who rammed into you is drunk.
Hopefully the clock won’t strike 12 as you are racing towards the party. God forbid the power goes off just as the emcee starts the final countdown to 2008. Let’s hope that the DJ doesn’t play Final Countdown just before the countdown begins, just like last year and the 20-odd years that have gone by since the song was released.
Maybe all that has been said so far is just the cynical rambling of a bamboozled mind. The process of ushering in the New Year might after all be a celebration of being alive. For our collective good, let us hope that the excitement is for real and about real things.
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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