Begin Again
Not just another New Year’s Eve
11:55 PM
You are accustomed to this hour of the night. Life-altering conversations, yummy snacks and steaming tumblers of coffee have chased your sleep away on multiple occasions- CTs, friends, fests and end semester exams. You remember that one night, which was a weary conclusion to a day full of monotonous classes and intense club work, when to your horror you realized that there was a test the next day. It was mayhem in your room and you would have fallen asleep midway through your meager preparation if not for your roommate! You realize ruefully that the one thing you could count upon in college was the presence of friends. On New Year’s eve with your buddies spread across the country, you’ve stayed back at home this year, away from all the picture-perfect, unrealistically hopeful parties. With an inviting bag of buttery popcorn on your lap, you settle into the couch and drearily browse through all the boring TV shows. Mentally debating whether the Harry Potter series or GoT deserves a rewatch, you finally pick your favourite and hit play.
11:56 PM
The cacophony of crackers and whistles swallows Hermione’s cries for help.
What, they’ve started already!?
Your phone is continuously pinging with posts and statuses on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, adding to your irritation and longing for friends.
Why do they have to update their life status everywhere? Can’t they just stick to one “Happy New Year” post?
You feel you ought to have gotten used to opening all your friends’ status updates. Especially when the Festember frenzy had gripped everyone. Something about the new year posts bother you. You burst out laughing when it hits you that the so-called “new year” is beginning with something outdated — repetition.
11:57 PM
You unwrap a Dairy Milk, determined to start the decade on a sweet note for all the triumphs you wish for. The secret ingredient to success, as Bill Gates put it, is focus. You decide to keep a one-track mind and put in some effort to score decent grades. A probable relationship with the Placement Cell in the future will please Dad. You plan to hit the gym thrice a week and call mom every day.
Yes! It’s 2020, a decade of victory and accomplishments and.. the same list of resolutions as 2019. You are quick to drown the tiny bubbles of doubt that rise to the surface of your drink. Resolutions, you think bitterly, are the sense of purpose in your actions for the first quarter of the year.
And for the rest? A reason to feel unsatisfied and frustrated.
11:58 PM
Your eyes spot the small childhood trophy your mother still treasures, which reminds you of the time when you actually got presents for your birthday and didn’t have to swipe your bank account clean of its contents. Those were the good old days, with mango-filled summers and hand cricket under the class desks; tiffins that were packed with love, hand-delivered and eaten hot at school. Reminiscing about those petty fights for badminton racquets during PE classes and passing notes to friends halfway across the classroom; wholeheartedly believing the world was going to end in 2012 and tearing up watching Leonardo’s Oscar, you come to the astonishing conclusion that you grew up.
11:59 PM
Lovers cuddle,
Joints in a muddle.
Fireworks in array,
Echoes of Hurrays!
You scramble out of the comforts of your room and rush out to the balcony and fondly gaze at the height markings on the wall. You had tip-toed with a sly smile when Dad added a new mark, because standing as tall as Dad was your greatest goal.
You wonder how the days passed into years and in turn, the years morphed into decades and all that was left were the memories of times bygone.
You wonder what the future will hold, as you fervently try to etch into your memory the portraits on the wall, the dust-coated medals hanging in the cupboard, the age-old drawings on the sofa and your childhood list of dream careers.
00:00
Happy New Year.
Your ticket back to the institution takes hold of your cheer. Sleeping at dawn after completing an addictive series, swatting away any well-intended wake-up calls, hurrying to class on a screeching cycle and spending the evening chatting at the dhaba- this was a familiar routine that you didn’t want to fall into just yet.
As you think about the future and what the new year holds, feeling a tad bit sentimental, you muse about what you will be leaving behind. Your room, with all the thought out posters. Your house, where you stuffed yourself with your favourite mom’s special gulab jamuns on Diwali. The talkative grocery store akka whom you visited every now and then with a long list of unintelligible names. That amiable auto bhaiyya who ziplined through the traffic and drove in one-ways to make sure that you weren’t late. Your childhood crush who purposefully talked to all your friends but you. Your family, who incessantly joked about your simple mishaps but more importantly stood by you in times both uncertain and joyful.
Glancing through the albums of your memory, you feel content with the path you chose and in acceptance of the battles you lost.
Your fort may stand tall today or cover the lands as rubble, but you understand that the memories you forged in its making are eternal.
This article was written in collaboration with G.s. AviNash and Murali Krishna.
