So whats new

How many new years should one celebrate? As soon as one drinks to glory to forget all the mistakes of last year which is typically not exercising and not cutting on drinks, one is faced with another new year within a month. In Jan you will have Tamilians celebrate Pongal with all the bulls they can lay their hands on, in March you will have Marathis make a pot with Gudi Padva and in April you will have Baisakhi and Vishu for two polar sides of this country Punjab and Kerala.

Atleast the Indian new years typically come at harvest time, hence anyone celebrating it will have something to look forward to, new seeds, fresh crops, new clothes, summer holidays et al. Whereas 2006 promises to me more of the same, the glassy exterior of a stuffy office, traffic jams on Tulsi pipe road , the same boss, blah blah. New year is actually like most Indian festivals a triumph; in this case its of marketing over common sense instead of good over evil.

New year 2006:Where you have to 'buy' yourself momentary joy at a price that will never justify the most extravagant optimism you have for the new year. Where you will end up celebrating the new year in your car as you wait on Andheri-Kurla Road to get into the Leelas for the Mardi Gras party. Where you will spend the new year in bed trying to nurse a hangover. Where you will break your limbs trying to dance but will be left with whom you started the new year with. And then having to prove later in office that you had been to the best new year dig in town.

At least the 90s were better. There was good old DD that did a new year wrapup in terms of news and movies. Then you had Jaspal Bhatti cracking a few vile jokes. As the screen blanked out, you could sleep peacefully wondering what new resolution to make.

A good marketer sells hope, but a smart person manages expectations. If there is nothing to expect, a good nights sleep is the best way to begin the year if it promises to be as bad as the last.