December 31, 2007
The last day of this disappointing year.
I hope 2008 will be friendly in many ways. Isn't it that there is a dawn after the darkest of nights? This is what they say, and I want to believe in it.
Well, whatever might happen, what is wrong in being optimistic?
Last night, the temperature hit the coldest of the season.
Well, talking of time, the only thing about it is that it flies so swiftly. Six years ago, on this day, I was in Goa with some friends to celebrate New Year's Eve.
A quick flashback to those ebullient, exciting revelries makes the intervening period, full of plentiful agonies and almost no ecstasies, seem almost inconsequential, of no significance at all.
It was a time without any milestones, without illustrious signboards—a gloomy period when I slogged out, in and out, here and there, in this field or that. I struggled, but it did not mean anything. All it meant was that I, tethered to my pains, took longer and longer routes to my failures.
Also, a lugubrious, oblivion-raising time came—a stage when you are in a state of delirium—when I, deliberately forgetting my pains, depressions and disappointments, allowed myself stony, impassive rest and repose.
I won't now take a single step towards any sort of achievement, I resolved.
Perhaps some milestone will itself get attracted to the barren, sandy vacuum in my being, I had thought. But harbouring such thoughts is exactly equivalent to believing in miracles.
The draw of luck is drawn in the invisible heavenly lots, and it may sometimes find you the achiever. But there are almost uncountable poor, deprived ones whose case is equally strong as yours. Even if you happen to draw the lot in your favour, that would only mean depriving a fellow poor, perhaps in even more dire circumstances than you, of some long-cherished chance.
Thankfully, no such chance came by itself, and since I was not going after any goal particularly, I missed the train completely.
Well, coming to the New Year's Eve revelry, I can't forget those excited, oblivious-colored, intoxicated, crowded, abbreviated, dancing, flirting, carousing, boisterous moments spent in Goa on the night of December 31, 2001.
Every nook and corner of Panaji, and almost the whole of Goa, was crammed to the gills with tourists from all over India and abroad. Hotels, motels, lodges of all types and categories were brimming to the ceilings.
Call girls and prostitutes who wouldn't have attracted any notice from clients during the off-season now drew attention and money like the unmatched queens of the trade.
Wine, cocktails and local brews filled up minds with mighty storms inside the valleys of revellers.
Musical concerts on the broad avenues, where ear-piercing sound bites blared in all directions, would leave you shaking with a dangerous rhythm.
The festive ignition provided by Christmas was now bursting like a big cracker to sprinkle fire, light and a storm of excitement around.
Lovers lost in each other's arms, lovers of the moment lost in paid shelter, singles drowned in the arms of liquor.
On beaches dimly lit, dotted with shacks, shops and restaurants, people challenged the sea's dark waves by creating their own sea of yearning hallucinations, its tide turning unnaturally, terribly, carrying a strange mystique and mist of light and dark.
The sea of revelry rolled, yanked, puffed out liquored breath, toned by crazy music, soldiered by numerous foot soldiers of the sea of oblivion.
The sea of riotous revelry, teetering excitement, make-believe love and boozed bonhomie.
It challenged the sea, the real sea, lashing the excited beaches to console the sand on fire.
Under the impact of this wild revelry, true love looks as if it has taken to its heels and stands suspiciously at a safe distance.
It is a fire of crazy passions, crazily carried by the madly hilarious crowd.
The year on its deathbed is furtively being carried to its grave. So many hands are eager and protrude fists to fill the grave with earth, and then the storm breaks out to celebrate over the field of the grave for the arrival of a new one—the newborn at the zero hour.
They cradle, cuddle, fondle it, thrust mad breaths into its cherubic face, drop to their knees, caress it, and the painfully stressed, beaten hours of the night draw away to the sea, kissing the beaches to pacify the ruffled, bonfire sand.
Goa's New Year revelry—liquor, noise, masti, music, love, lust, brawls.
Next day, you find beaches and streets littered with enjoyment-making leftovers. It takes weeks to bring the badly shaken house to order.
Then suddenly Goa's full bowls are emptied.
A huge outflow of tourists, a reflux of them.
Buses, taxis, railway stations, airports—all are cowed down under the hangover-imposed increased weight of bodies now attracted to the earth with more stony force.
Because after that flying, frolicking, lofty highs, now they are dropped down on the hard, bare ground of realities once again.
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