Dec 31st 2003

Its already Jan 15th and perhaps too late to give my account of the last year. But, the year was so good, that I simply have to write about it, in spite of myself.

If the way you bring in the year is any indiaction of the things to follow, 2004 sure proved it. For the fist time in my life I attended a New Year party. So what if it was on a cousin's neighbour's terrace and the crowd consisted of schoolkids?? It was great fun!

Every other New year's eve other than this one was spent at home or at a friend's/cousin's place in Bangalore where we would invariably watch TV and convince ourselves that this was what everyone else did too. Oh, how I pitied my poor cousins who lived in smaller cities than Bangalore! If we, living in such a "happening" place, did nothing more than call up a couple of friends at 12:00 to wish them, who, had little to do themselves on that much awaited night than pick up the phone on the first ring; what would these kids do??! I saw what they did on the night of Dec 31st, 2003.

I was in Mysore, as part of a training program and was put up at an uncle's place. It was the 31st of Dec and after having had so many uneventful 'Dec 31st's didn't expect much from this one. My cousins, however, had been busy the whole day, shopping and making arrangements for the "party" which I was to attend too. At 8:30 that evening I went to the neighbur's terrace. My cousins were already there and so were the neighbours kids and most other kids who I had seen play or chat with my cousins. They were early because they were the hosts. I soon realised that we only had hosts, no guests, barring myself and a 12th standard kid who thought it was a hep party and came rather fashionably dressed. Soon, there was no host, no guest and we all mingled freely despite our age differences and kicked off the party. We played games - Dumb Charades, Antakshari, Queen of Sheeba et al. And, What's a party without food and drink? There was plenty of that too, and most of it home made. We had Sandwiches, pakoras, Gulab jamoon and other mouth watering stuff. At 12:00 we cut the cake and music was turned on full blast and we all danced for some time till parents summoned their kids home.

It was 1:00 by the time we got back home and what a time we'd all had! Especially myself, who had expected so little that I was overwhelmed by the experience. I soon understood that the city you lived in didn't matter, what mattered was the willingness and the interest of the people involved to make things happen. What made this party enjoyable and thus successful was, the camaraderie of the kids and their enthusiasm to come together as a team and do something, so that everyone could have a good time come evening. And, how well they managed to accomplish that! 2004 will go down as one of the best years' of my life and this will be the first (literally too) reason for that!

I just read what I've written so far and I see that I have deviated completely from what this post was originally to be about. So much so that I changed the title.

PS: It was originally called "The year that was....".