Zooming into the new year

Eventually, I got fed up of the Facebook updates of what people did for the new year, answering questions about what I was planning to do. I hate the pressure of having to do something on every occasion, and then to announce it publicly.

I spent my new year eve in a pub, much to my chagrin. It’s just that I figured out last moment most of my friends had ditched me and gone somewhere, the remaining did not pick up their phones, and I still had the option of joining a few friends in a pub or sitting home sad while I read more Facebook updates of what people did.

I was all the more pissed because 12/31 happened to be my last day of employment, and the last day of having a work permit thereof. I was going to be a jobless, penniless, illegal alien the next day.

I figured I could either whine and get upset, especially at my friend who ditched me last moment and fled to the east coast to meet his sister, or go out and enjoy myself.

I wish I had stayed at home.

My new year started with one of the most profound realizations. Pubs, clubs, and bars are not for me. Like my friend, although in a state of stupor, correctly pointed out that if in a pub, it is best to get drunk, else the noise, the people, the loud music, and the craziness gets too much to handle in a sane, sober, un-inebriated self. Alcohol mellows down the senses and makes the chaos more bearable. Point taken.

But then, it is a different experience sitting sober amidst a crowd of intoxicated people and watching them. Of my many observations, I discovered that most people in nightclubs here wear black. And they wear everything. Backless. Sideless. Almost topless. Usually bottomless. People wear funky hats and garlands for earrings. And with the strangest of clothes and accessories, men and women gyrate in the strangest ways to the tune of music and alcohol, in their “high on hormones” state. Hips gyrate, legs go up and down, the spine bends a good 180 degrees. Imagine these people doing funny dance moves in broad daylight, without the music, at their home. It would look hilarious.

I soon realized that most people here would wish for easy sex, but would be happy with anything less too. A non-casual hug that lingers a few seconds more, random people shaking my hands and using the loud music as an excuse to come close to my ears and speak, as if they had something interesting to say. While people laughed and smiled and tried to start conversation, I put on my most grumpy look, frowning eyebrows and not wanting to make any contact. For special “gloomy” effects, I had refused to wear my contact lenses and wore my black rimmed grandfather glasses instead. A guy, whom I later learnt was gay, went around kissing girls on the forehead, blessing them like some kind of sadhu baba. 

I squirmed and frowned, acting difficult and refusing every offer of a drink. How I wish I was in the warm confines of my cozy home, reading a book. I waited a little more and then went to the patio to watch the Space Needle fireworks. It was a cold and rainy night. The fireworks seemed the only incentive for me, the one right thing that happened during the evening of wrongs, so what if it lasted exactly 7 minutes? I hugged my friends, made my new year resolutions (which I usually do not follow beyond the second week of January), and prepared to go home. Finding a cab would be hard; we had walked quite a bit in the rain and cold earlier, unable to find parking. Wish more people would stay home eating turkey instead of venturing out.

We were prepared to leave when my drunk friends started a bout of Hindi movie songs on the streets, to our amusement and to the confusion of the non-desi crowd. I wish I was drunk and in oblivion as well instead of waiting for a cab outside in the cold. I was never happier to reach home and get inside my comforter.

Thus started my new year, in a crowded bar with drinks splashed all on the floor, in the middle of drunk people shaking booties, watching fireworks in the rain, and wishing I had put on my black backless party dress instead of wearing jeans. I don’t belong to this world of pub hoppers. I don’t think I am ever going to a pub anytime this year. And if I do, I am surely getting drunk.

Happy new year everyone.

sunshine