A decade ago, this day, we were in Goa, having driven there all the way from Delhi in a small car that contained vast quantities of clothes that were shed the further south we moved, equal quantities of food for consumption en route (replaced by cases of cheap Goa booze on the return journey), two pre-teen children who scratched each other viciously all the way there and back, and a wife prone to motion-sickness whose only conversation consisted of serial moaning. And that’s the good part. It was the last time we had a fun new year, even though in pictures every one of us is looking grouchy or hungry or green, and ever since things have gone downhill.
The next new year’s our little entourage of cars got lost driving in the fog, so some of us walked wet and cold and miserable in the mist to avoid going off the road, criss-crossed Delhi’s suburbia, and only managed to reach home when the sun was up. By then the bickering and bitterness had got the better even of everyone’s hangovers, and the year started on an acrimonious note, and we decided the following new years to stay home. But so did everyone else — our home that is. So even though we weren’t prepared, friends, and friends of friends dropped in, and stayed instead of going because the fog was very thick. And so we cooked and catered and fixed and made jolly, except my wife and I were so tired we went to sleep, only to find when we woke that everyone else had decided to camp there as well.
So we were relieved when, the following year, my aunt and uncle decided to combine a housewarming bash with new year’s, but that was the year Sarla giggled so much, she peed all over their new sofa, and the next morning my aunt made my uncle scrub it clean, and we got an earful from them about the company we kept, and henceforth their doors have been barred to us even though I had their upholstery changed as compensation.
The following year because the neighbours complained about the decibel of music, the police arrived but instead of leaving with a warning and a tip, as is the custom, latched us in from outside and went their way. As a result we stayed in till the milkman let us out in the morning, and the next day was spent at the police thana placating irate old people. Even then things might have been sorted out amicably, only my wife retorted that it was a jolly good thing we’d kept them awake that night since they seemed to be sleeping their days and life away, which meant considerable embarrassment and an apology signed for posterity on stamp paper.
Having opted for sobriety the next few years, we found ourselves pacing through the night as we waited for our teenagers to return from their new year decadences, and since the stress proved too much, we decided last year to head for our club where we were pulled up by the management because several in the group had also smuggled in their hip-flasks, cheating the establishment of its rightful earnings. Any hope that we’d bond under the same roof this new year were dashed when our son decided to abandon coming home for an extended vacation in Goa, our daughter chose a slumber party with friends in the neighbourhood, and when my wife, like the new year, passed out among a group of ridiculously dressed friends, I did the only sensible thing possible: Come home alone to 2010.
