Vijay Phanshikar 

 

 

NO MATTER the previous night’s celebratory hustle, hassle and bustle of New Year eve, the park was remarkably the same bustling place despite the rather cold January 1 morning. There might have been a few people less than usual -- may be because of the windy and the cloudy morn -- but the place did not show even a hint of the hangover of the previous night’s revelry. The people were there, in almost the same numbers, all geared up for morning fitness constitutional, either individually or in groups. What a happy feeling did the place evoke!! The loosefooter’s enquiries with a few people if they had joined the New Year eve parties or night-outs were met with a quizzical look and an irritated tone. “Why?”, asked one man in his late 40s rather snappily, “Why do you ask such a question? Is there any sense in those parties and night-outs?” Sheepishly, the loosefooter made his way away, with a half smile of a boy playing truant -- but internally satisfied that good, very good, numbers of people found no joy in the New Year eve revelry generally soaked in undesirable liquids and undesirable late-night time spent outside home. Of course, the life in city’s streets -- and bars and restaurants and hotels -- on the evening and night of December 31, 2023, was fairly sober, so to say, by general accounts.

 

There were celebrations all right, but those were within the frame of law as well as decency and dignity. Certainly, the society seemed to have moved forward over the past few years, if one may take the liberty to say so. The park -- on January 1, 2024 -- was a happy place with business as usual going on -- of people engaging in brisk walk, physical training exercise and yogasanas or group prayers or congregating for the RSS Shakha or leisurely conversations sitting on benches or on the steps around the graceful statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj ... ! -- as if the New Year eve meant nothing for them. What a pleasant feeling did all that give!! Over the past few decades, the loosefooter, as a journalist, has seen and sensed dwindling enthusiasm of increasing numbers of people in the so-called New Year eve revelry. True, he also saw -- like all did -- the madness in the name of New Year eve celebrations -- boozing, misbehaving, creating ruckus in public places, indulging in drunken brawls, meeting with accidents riding mobikes and cars at frightening speeds ...! In the past some years, however, all those indulgences seemed to be waning -- giving saner elements of the society some satisfaction that good sense was somehow returning to people. The sense of happy satisfaction that the park evoked on New Year morn had all this with reference to context.

 

The loosefooter also met with many people who did not regard January 1 as New Year beginning, and said that they would wait for the Hindu New Year to arrive later -- and then celebrate that occasion. Over the past few years, the loosefooter has seen this thought gaining an ever-expanding ground in people’s mind. There is no actual problem with January 1 as New Year dawn. But if the people in increasing numbers are waiting the New Years of the calendars that highlighted Indian cultural expressions, then the development must be welcomed. The loosefooter might have liked to make some caustic comments as well, about people’s conduct on New Year eve, but would refrain from making those in honour of people’s sense of dignity. Anyway, he wishes everybody a very Happy New Year! n