Festiwitti # 3 : New Year ? Nothing new, yaar !

New Year ? Nothing New, Yaar !

Nothing new ? Is that so ? No, you're wrong. 2013 is a year that deserves special treatment.

Why, do you ask ?

Simply because, for a while there, the Mayans had us making like the Gauls, and believing that the sky might just possibly fall on our heads in 2012. And  that obviously didn’t happen, so it’s time to celebrate; to make 2013 a landmark year. By doing something (or possibly, many things) differently….or by doing different things.

To start with, let’s get the date right, huh ? Let’s not spend the first week of 2013 writing the date as xx/ 01/2012 and then saying “Oh, crap !” and scoring it out.

And then, take a look at which ones among this list of possibilities is yours to explore:



1.   Make a bucket list
The movie may have made this activity famous, but it’s been around for a while before that. You’ll be surprised how path-breaking and how liberating this activity can be. Sit down and make a list of the 10 (or 20, or 50) things you’d like to do, or the places you’d like to see, or the people you’d like to meet, before you kick the bucket. Make the list as extravagant as you like, taking care to ensure that each item on it is achievable , given the right focus. This will give a new fillip to your efforts, a new strength to the path you’re already taking.

2.  Tell your boss to go fly a kite 

Seriously. Once in a while, you need to have a little chat with him or her that isn’t linked to a performance appraisal. In all probability, there’s a lot you need to say. So flesh it out in your mind, and then just go say it. Check out how liberated you feel at the end of it.

3.    Explore your latent talent
Sure, you have talent – almost everyone does. It’s just that you simply haven’t tried looking at it, because you think your metier lies elsewhere. Step out of yourself for a bit and take a good look. Do you write ? Now’s the time to start a column, lots of people will want to know what you know. Do you like teaching ? The country needs you. Do you play a musical instrument ?  Upload a video on YouTube. DO something, don’t just let your talent lie there.

4.    Do something socially meaningful
Support a cause.  Financially “adopt” a child.  Donate to a charity. Join the “Teach India” initiative. Lend your skills to an NGO on an honorary basis. Do something that will make a difference. Merely because you wish to do it.  Merely because you can. And see how good it makes you feel.

5.   Rekindle the spark
Benjamin Disraeli once said that “it destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being”. All equations between people tend to get frayed with time, either because of inadequate nurturing or for any other reason. Likewise, it’s possible that your relationship with your partner has been taking a beating in the recent past.  Treat each point of discord, each misunderstanding, each argument as a log of wood – pile the lot together and set fire to it. Bask in the warmth and use it to rekindle the spark between you. It’s never too late, but it does need one person to take that step.

6.   Pamper yourself
Tired of doing things just because they’re expected of you ? Of slaving yourself half to death meeting people’s expectations, whether at work, at play, or at home ? It’s a part of life, believe me – we ALL do it. So keep it in suspended animation for a while. Focus on the things you would like to do to make YOU happy. An expensive spa treatment. A trip to London.  A Bose stereo system. A week of lying back in your armchair and going through a pile of twenty books. Think of the five things you’ve denied yourself for the past five years, and gift them all to yourself this year.

7.   Test your will
A bad habit hasn’t been born yet, that can’t be kicked. If you have one, try getting rid of it NOW. Not as a New Year Resolution (that will ensure that you never do it !), but just to show yourself that you can, and you always could, but just chose not to, all this time.

The list is endless. If you decide to try this out, make sure you share your experiences in the comment box below !

And in conclusion, here's a final thought....

Hello, dear readers and friends
Pause and reflect, as another year ends
Whether you've done all you said you would
Whether everything that's happened has been good
Whether the stumbling blocks have given you food
for thought;
and if not,
whether in fact they should !

In 2013, it does behoove
all of us to greatly improve
on our resolutions of the previous year;
on the time we spend with near and dear;
on our efforts towards a good career;
and on the route that we must follow
to reach the end of the rainbow.

In the mad rush to achieve our ends
We'd do well to remember, friends,
that - although it's always great to gain
nothing's greater than being humane !

All the very best to you, readers – here’s hoping your 2013 scintillates !! Happy New Year !

Festiwitti # 2 : Silent Night, Holy Smoke !

This article was published in the Telegraph magazine, Kolkata, India, on December 25, 1989. But i'm not posting it under the "Salad" section because I think this one is still, well, green.......

Christmas.....and all that ! (1989)

When we were very young, so young that we weren't even sure what age was all about, Christmas had no meaning: it was just another night during which the grown-ups were invariably out, and we were tucked into bed and told to keep quiet and fall asleep quickly if we didn't want the Indian equivalent of the bogeyman to come along and spirit us away.

Then we grew a little older and read about Dennis and Joey, and realised that Christmas meant snowballs and evergreen trees, stockings pinned up before a fireplace that wasn't lit, and a big fat red man who came calling on a reindeer-drawn sleigh with tons of gaily-wrapped presents in the boot. And we wondered whether we were being deprived, because we never saw the man; we never got any presents; our experience of snow was never allowed to extend beyond the visual; and the only stockings we had were kept under lock and key because they related to school and didn't merit the kind of cavalier treatment Dennis the Menace saw fit to mete out to them.

We grew older still, began to ask the right questions, and suddenly knew a lot that hadn't earlier occurred to us. We were introduced to a phenomenon called pneumonia, that dictated that snow and susceptibility must never be allowed to come together. We were informed that there are Christians and Catholics and Protestants and others, and that those 'others' were not privileged to receive the attentions of Santa Claus, nor were they bound, morally or religiously, to partake of the traditional festivities. We were taught that it smacked of cupidity to expect presents on days other than one's birthday, and refused to subscribe to the dictum that it is more blessed to give than to receive. And we tried and tried but could never quite tell the difference between reindeer and sambhar, until we were eventually informed that one has to visit the right country to be able to understand the distinction.

And Father Time watched all this with a growing sadness until, sick to his stomach with it all, he, like James Hadley Chase's Miss Shumway, waved his wand and brought us the kind of Christmas we were finally able to understand.

We know now that it isn't Christmas, the day, that is particularly important or significant, but more Christmas, the season. We know that this season means iridescent lights on Park Street. We know that it means cotton-wool beards on cardboard cut-outs in display windows. And we know that Christmas means that enterprising shopowners covertly hike prices by 50%, and then overtly reduce them by 25%, and then yell "Discount !" until they're blue in the face.



We know that the onset of the Christmas season means that we must get our black ties and pin-striped suits out of the mothballs and give them a thorough airing, since we'll be using them on and off for a couple of weeks. We know that we'll have to make out a mailing list and spend a small fortune on greetings cards, not because the fires of Bethlehem glow warmly in our hearts, but because a respected gentleman a few years back wrote volumes on something called "public relations", and we know from experience that he was talking sense.

We sing Christmas carols with an elan that we really have no right to feel, because the tune that is running through our minds at the time is either "Careless Whisper", or "Oye Oye", or the Moonlight sonata, according to taste. For most of us who are still in our prime, Santa Claus is experienced through a leather-clad performer on a decibel-packed stage, or a dinner-jacketed evening at a club, or an amber-coloured decanter that has no bottom.

We each do our own thing, singly or in groups, until the clock strikes midnight, and then say "Merry Christmas !" to each other in a manner that suggests that we wouldn't have minded saying "Happy Holi !" instead, had there been a logical enough reason for it. Nobody says "Yo, ho, ho !" any more, because he doesn't want people to think he's drunk. Very few people think at all of Jesus - "I'm an atheist, thank God !" they say, for Dumas made it fashionable. And those who do observe the midnight mass and the Christmas spirit whisper, sotto voce, to Our Mother of Perpetual Succour to gloss over the sins of their hedonistic brethren.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it's over, and we move in weary droves to our respective beds, ever mindful of the fact that New Year's Eve is yet to come and we need to conderve our reserves of energy. And as we tuck ourselves in during the wee hours, we fancy we hear a plaintive wail in the darkness:

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, some are tight
Divine decadence ?
Let there be light......

Festiwitti # 1 : Jingle Bills, Jingle Bills

It's back again ~ the Resolution Season, that splendid time of the year when we begin to ponder about what has been and what could be, and try and define parameters for what will  be.

Things have changed.

These days, our children inform us, with the extreme restraint that only the young can exercise in the presence of the hopelessly middle-aged, that "Santa Claus is for babies ~ he doesn't really exist". These days, garment store prices are marked up before they are marked down, and an animal called Cover Charge makes eating at restaurants an unviable proposition.

These days, there are fewer plums in the plum cakes, and the wines are so inadequately aged that one wonders how the grape grew to  fruition in the first place. These days, the party music is so loud that conversation doesn't reign, it pours; not that it matters, because any form of movement other than walking and running qualifies for the description of a dance. Those courageous enough to attempt conversation at social gatherings, speak into a mobile rather than to another human being.

These days, we have the "e-sentiment" - since email and e-greetings are universally free. These days, Santa Claus, had he been one of us, would have been tempted to say "Boo, hoo, hoo, and a Merry Christmas".

amidst the work, the food, the drink
do you sometimes pause, look back and think
 that another twelve months have blundered past
 leaving you musing, quite aghast
that you, again, have not quite met
 that long-awaited, elusive target
 of improving the quality of your life ?

 Good luck. Don't forget to hang up your Christmas stockings (mentally or otherwise) ~after all, it still remains true that it is usually when one asks, that one receives.

My best wishes to all of you for a joyous festive season. Here’s hoping that your 2013 is at least half-full rather than half-empty.