Today I would call the show reasonably comedic and a good option when you are hard-pressed for choices of what to watch. Back then though, with it's "adult" humour, ie., some slight inneundos thrown in every now and then, I thought it was the zenith of comedy. So I began to watch the weekly episodes as well and when the next New Year's Eve rolled around, I searched again for the yearly recap, this time armed already with some memories from episodes of the year. And so it began, the little tradition.
Perhaps in the years from that night in Madurai to today, I have skipped this tradition more often than I have followed it. I have no epic memories of ushering in the New Year. I remember traveling on the YPR Sampark Kranti Express train from Yeshwantpur station to Pune a couple of times. A truly excellent train ride, hop on in the afternoon after lunch, nap for a bit, wake up, read, relax. Sleep. Wake up around sunrise when the train is passing through the mountains. This particular stretch is scenic and has only a single-lane track.
I'm going to go off track here (pun intended) and say something about the tea that they serve you in Indian Railway stations. Let's get one thing straight - it's bad tea. In fact, with the amount of water in it, it's barely tea. And about 3 spoons of sugar in a tiny cup. Piping hot. But that's the secret. It's so bad that it's good. You are under no illusions about the taste. In that moment, you would like a caffeiny, hot drink and what you're feeling truly is thirst. You could satiate the feeling with a couple of sips of water, but we've trained our bodies to feel a hot liquid on your tongue at such moments. And with that amount of sugar, there's really no disliking it.
Coming back to the scenic stretch of track through the hills, it is a good moment to contemplate on life, take in some rare early morning sunlight and as the hot tea flows into your stomach, answer the age-old question of whether it's better to live with an uncomfortable feeling for a few hours or to spend 5 minutes in a train bathroom.
Apart from this, I remember a New Year's Eve night in Manali with friends. There we had FIFA and live football to keep us company, but the focus was mostly on waking up early the next day. And the last two New Year's Eve nights in Rome. The first, in the company of a couple of friends, probably watching Friends and whiling away the time. The next one in solitude. Every other year was spent at home, watching The Year That Wasn't, probably. I can't think of anything else I might have done, anywhere else I might have been.
At some point these traditions begin to wither. Today I remember this little run I've had and the first thing that New Year's Eve brings to my mind is Cyrus Broacha. Perhaps ten years from now I won't even remember this. There are things that we assign a disproportionate weight to in our mental space, memories and feelings. Take Deepavali firecrackers. When I think of Deepavali from my childhood, I remember it to be a total riot of firecackers and fun. But I truly began to play with them only from maybe age 8 or 9. And there were years when we were travelling, years when we went to other's houses. And I stopped by the time I turned 16. All said and done, I had at most 5 years of Deepavali with fireworks. But childhood Deepavali feels like an endless line of mad cracker days. And they define it for me, so much so that the smell and smoke from the bomb we call bijali in Kannada (sutli bomb is the term in Hindi, I believe, the standard red ones that come in 100/1000/100000 waalahs) brings me a flood of good memories and good feelings.
One other thing that takes up way more than warranted mental space is the changing of the calendar year. Birthdays make way more sense. New Year is just an arbitrary selected point to keep track of the earth going around the sun. No law of nature respects the distinction between the years. Viruses (virii??) aren't going to become less virulent suddenly, for example.
But it's still nice. It helps us package things, break time into little chunks and process it. When I have to figure out how old I was when something happened, I try to remember which semester/school year I was in, then figure out which year that was and then calculate my age. Life is full of smooth transitions, and usually we keep track of them from more personally relevant milestones and large events. When I think of good times, some particular year in school, some months before and after graduation, etc. I think of Deepavali firecrackers and Ganesha Chaturthi in my grandfather's brother's house. Smooth transitions keep happening. It's only when we look back that we appreciate how sharp the cummulative effect of all these smooth transitions have been.
And so we need the event. The tradition, the ritual. The event might be a quiet night watching a particular show, or a night of hard partying. It is all the din around you and all the people you know wishing you a happy new year. It helps us set a marker. Much like the small explosions of Deepavali fireworks, the immersion of Ganesha in the well or the collective throwing up of black hats while dressed in robes.
And so, let us hope the smooth transition towards better days is already underway and we haven't realised it yet. And years from now, tonight will be remembered as the marker, the harbinger of good times.