Why You Should Not Celebrate HNY

          Because that is an ant-Christ activity, that's why.

Nobody answers a question upfront. But you must have noticed that I am a contrary man.

In Kerala they celebrate Onam. That day, and during the nine days preceding the final day, they are active. Three score years ago, one could understand. Those days there was produce from the land. And, guess what, there was land! There were flowers, aplenty all over. So pookalam was easy. Around then came Dubai. Kerala went to nought. Now, no land, no produce, no flowers. Not even coconuts, after which the land was named! Now, it is next to a desert.

You see, Onam is a harvest festival. Got the point? Without harvest, what celebration? Import everything from other states and celebrate your harvest. How silly! Instead of kids walking with baskets, on to the spread-out land of yore, to pluck flowers from the wild, learning and knowing the names of native flowers in the bargain, now they buy the commercial ones from the market! How stupid! Can you show me thumba poo, the essential flower, anywhere? And, hey, where are the kids? Now it is only the old and infirm in Kerala. NRIs celebrate with gusto in foreign lands in brand new Kerala sarees or with set-mundu, within their flats, with the make-believe pookalam and sadya. What a paradox!

But then, I was on New Year celebrations. My grandchildren have a complaint. "Grandpa, you always digress from the topic and then forget the main story".

What happens in the new year? Nothing: that's what happens! For you get up late and with a devil of a hangover. You are in your "Sunday morning best dress" the previous evening. You sing if you can and dance even if you can't, and shout to everyone around, "appynooyar", insincerely. You act and think as if you are on top of the world and drink like a fish. You celebrate, if that's what it is, the previous evening, rather, night. That is, the last day or night as it were, of the fading year.

You conglomerate at the specified club or hotel pretty late in the evening. You seemingly revel. That means eats and drinks. Soon you can see the ties of gents all loose and askance and ladies with their fancy, bought for the occasion, high heels in their hands. The handbags, the hobo bags or clutches or whatever (there is an obscene number of them with ridiculous names), that they brought along in style, flashing them in your face, would be dumped on some chair nearby, for they are dancing to the blaring, deafening cacophony erroneously called music. Nobody knows the graceful ballroom dance, though. Neither the DJs, the appropriate music. Where are the Bands that played such melodious music?

As the evening wears off and approaches midnight, one can feel the pent-up hollow happiness about to erupt like a volcano. Many ladies and gentlemen will be unsteady and laughing foolishly, to make up for it. That declares the level of their joy, unlike those sitting doing nothing, holding orange juice in their dainty palms and sulking, wallowing in their inabilities. The DJ reaches at his cacophony worst.

And then one minute before the stroke of midnight, lights go off. A thunderous collective shout burst out. As if that is not enough, the DJ does something to increase the decibels to equal a Pionjar rock drill. Hugs happen. Kisses happen, especially among the wrong couples.

Once the lights come on, it is all wishing happy new year all around. Soon the crowd regaining their breaths starts thinning out. You somehow reach home, hit the bed and pass out.

Come morning, is the new year. Sun rays peep through the trees and plants and stroke the flowers. They even peep through your windows and doors, hoping to see a spirited world. But I am sure they are saddened because man is asleep; as good as dead! On the first day of the year, which is to be welcomed. It is only the birds and bees that chirp and sing and hum in that early morning New Year tender Sun. For them, it is another day, a happy day and thankful day and merciful day, like any other new day.

Man danced in the night. Night is the time of the Devil. The Demon. The Evil. And dancing to him, with him, for him, is anti-Christ.

Instead, if man had got up at the crack of dawn on that beautiful day, got on top of the nearby hill, walked on to the beach or even climbed up to his terrace with, out-stretched hands breathed-in the dewy fresh air that is full of smiles and drinks in the generous morning plentiful rays and feasts his eyes with the sight of the baby Sun slowly looking up from the horizon with all his glorious colours, and whispered a "welcome" to the new day and wished himself that every day of that year be as good as that day, then that would be a celebration.

May you all be happy and enjoy and live the New Year in all its glory.

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