Christmas and New Year seasons have to be the most wonderful time of the year as the famous song rightly puts it. In spite of the cold weather, people maintain a very high spirit and tend to be more kind, caring, loving and giving than ever. I wonder if it’s the hope that you will be judged and rewarded accordingly every time this year, that instigates this super nice syndrome in every one or is it just the happiness and joy of convivial togetherness that is reflecting in every action.
The one ubiquitous thing associated with any festival is the hype that comes with it. There is much hype about New Year during Christmas season. So Manoj and I went all the way up to the great New York City to witness the New York extravaganza on this Christmas Eve. There was indeed a maddening and highly disoriented crowd around the famous Rockefeller centre. The St. Patrick’s church was over booked and the entrance was closed long before the midnight mass. There was blinding colors and lights and a tsunami of people (seemingly tourists) moving around Time Square region. But other than that I found nothing amusing about the entire place. If we think logically, there is not a single day when New York is not crowded. There is not a single day when there are no lights or tourists in New York City. There is not a single day when the highly expensive shops in Fifth Avenue are not decorated efficaciously to lure the shopping fiends. Except for the huge Christmas tree at the Rockefeller centre there was hardly anything new about the place. I couldn’t help but compare this to the one week long Onam celebrations in my dear old Gods own country with extensive decorations stretching far and wide and non stop cultural, entertainment and dining booths present all over the palace ground. Nevertheless being at New York City for Christmas is a big deal in itself and I must admit that watching the adept ice skaters at the special ice rink in front of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller centre is a marvelous experience. I would have definitely tried skating there this time had I not been so ashamed of falling down a zillion times in front of a million people. So, contented with that we went back home promising to return next time as expert or at least decent skaters of course.
Having had an opportunity to compare the taste between hype and reality we were happy to have already booked tickets to go to Chicago to be with our friends for New Year instead of falling for the ‘New year ball drop at Time Square is the biggest thing in the whole wide world’ hype. Later reports from a few other colleagues of ours, who did fall for this bait, confirmed that our decision was right. On 30th December we flew to Chicago and were met at the airport by our very good friend Greeshma. Greeshma and Satheesh moved to Chicago from New Jersey and we have been missing their company ever since. We drove to their home in Naperville which is a pleasant and calm city with innumerous shopping malls around. The apartment was nice and as usual Greesh had kept it spick and span (much unlike me) and I enjoyed watching the way her creativity sparkled at every nook and corner of the house. But sadly I was having a slight fever that day and I was half doped on the antibiotics so all I could do as soon as I reached her home was to sleep for a while. Once I woke up I felt much better and was all set to rock. Satheesh was home from office after a while and Biju-Rehana joined us from St. Louis a little later. Now the real mood was set in of being home for holidays.
As typical of any holiday, we ate, drank and took lot of pictures. The star attraction of the group was Biju’s Canon SLR digital camera which made all of us look far more beautiful than we really are. All of us, especially the girls were giving their best poses and smiles in front of the lenses… Holidays are not just about having fun. It is also about telling others, ‘how much fun we had’ (probably more than you?) and giving proofs in pictures. So even if you just had a fight with your spouse, make sure you give a cheese in front of the cam!!
We still did not have a place to go for the New Year eves party. It was too late to get tickets for the one place we all had agreed upon. The various interests of the people made it even more difficult to find an agreeable place. Greesh n myself wanted a place with good dance floors preferably a Latin club. Manoj and satheesh wanted a place where there was an open bar. Biju and Rehana were blissfully free from most of the indulgence based vices and hence the decision had to be cost effective for tea totalers. Eventually after much confusion, accusations, phone calls and rejections we came across a club called Sangria which met all the required criteria and the tickets were booked online. So on Dec 31st we all decided to go to Chicago down town, around noon, to visit the main tourist spots of the city and from there go to the club later in the night.
Though the plans were all set, they were drastically altered as one of the ladies wanted to straighten her curly hair. She has nice shoulder length hair which falls into intricate curls at the end. I always thought it looked pretty. But she wanted to straighten it for the Big new year day and Murphy’s law was acting in full swing on her and this in turn took a very long time. I must say that she is an amazing perfectionist but sadly she doesn’t believe in the policy of a contingency plan and/or an alternate plan in anything. So she was bent on getting her hair straightened no matter what obstacles came up and she did succeed in it…How ever this made her pathee dev quite intimidated and the rest of the crowd was trying to be highly diplomatic in pacifying both of them so that we can all pose together with a cheese in front of the cam again!!
By night fall (It was just 4:30 pm, but the night did fall !!) we caught a train to Chicago down town. It was a one hour journey. So I got some time to wander in my thoughts. The train was moderately crowded. A good number of passengers were youngsters traveling to down town for the NYE celebration. Another section of the crowd seemed to be totally oblivious of the ‘importance’ of the day. Some of them were worn out from work, some of them had a painful concern in their eyes about their burdens, and some of them were way too less pretty to hang out in a club when compared to the rather sophisticated and highly made up gorgeous girls that occupied the majority of the seats. This made me wonder about the vanity of the being beautiful. Are we really beautiful or are we just as beautiful as what others think we are or even worse, what we think others think we are?
I did some personal introspection. I have reasonably beautiful eyes. But if I want to go for a special function, read as any gathering of people where I know I am going to be judged, I would not want to go without my colored contact lenses. I would never even think of going there wearing my thick glasses. Once my long nails got chipped just before a party and I got so frustrated that I stuck them back with a glue stick! A good friend of mine took pity on me seeing this and he brought me a couple of cosmetic attachable nails from US, which was not available in India at that time. Some one is hysteric about a bead in their bracelet facing the wrong side, some one is upset for the eye shades don’t gel well, some one is mad for their hair is frizzy and some one is furious for their shoes are one shade lighter !!! Not to mention the numerous ads for liposuction, augmentations, plastic surgeries and face lifts.
When it comes to the fairer sex, is their beauty all about following the standards set by the fashion icons through popular fashion bibles? Can we be really beautiful only if we have a size 4 body with a spotless glowing skin, green eyes, silky hair, well done nails, stunning clothes and matching paraphernalia? Have we lost complete confidence in the natural looks that our gene pool has blessed us with , that even stepping out of the house without doing considerable modifications on ourselves would become garish? Do we still believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder or is it long over written by the new phrase ‘beauty is very much within reach of only those with a good bank balance’?
A sudden out rush of people told me that we have reached Chicago down town. This is a beautiful city with closely packed high rising building. The architecture is very modern and highly creative. Even the buildings seemed to stress more on their appearance though I couldn’t understand what practical purpose would most of the protruding corners would serve any how? The chief attraction of the town is Sears Tower which is one of the tallest buildings in N. America. We went on top of it and had a very good view of the city. The lake shore drive around the city is also supposed to be very amusing just like its Navy pier. But we had to skip these two because of our time constraints and uncontrollable hunger. We were practically starving the whole day. So we rushed down. We met an Indian Cab driver and asked him directions to a nice Indian restaurant. Based on what he said we strutted 4 blocks in the chilling wind only to find a third class mafia style restaurant inside a congested alley and we ladies thought it was way too below our standard to step foot inside. So we walked again and eventually found a nice restaurant called ‘Athena’. I can’t quite remember what happened for the next one and a half hours as every one was busy ordering their dishes and hogging them generously. Once we were done with the dinner Greeshma and I headed to the rest room to change into our party wears.
The fashion bible says that girls in clubs have to wear partially revealing clothes which should mostly look as if the tailor forgot to stitch a couple of loose ends together. As we couldn’t walk in the chilling cold of down town in tattered clothes, we packed them in a bag, including our high heeled stilettos and made our husbands carry the bags so that we could change into them just before we go to the party. Also we had to put on some additional layer of colors on our faces to disguise our real selves. One lady who walked into the rest room while we were half way through our ‘hide your real self process’ thought that we work at the restaurant and we were changing from our uniforms to go out some were for the new year night!!
Once we were all set we got a cab and drove to ‘Sangria’ club for the big night. Despite the fact that we had VIP tickets which said we would not have to wait in a Queue to get inside the club, we were made to stand outside in the cold for about half an hour along with a bunch of others. Biju said this was a part of the publicity stunts by all clubs to make their club look to be in high demand. Once we got inside the club I found the place to be neat, though crowded. The management was still re arranging table to make space for the dance floor. The coat check in was not yet in place so every one was practically walking up and down disoriented. Manoj and Satheesh headed straight to the Open bar and spend most of their time there. Biju was kind enough to keep a watchful eye on the girls before we wander too far away. The DJ was not so impressive. He did play mixtures of Spanish-hip hop and bhangra songs. I and Greeshma danced sporadically. We even got hit on by a tall girl who was too eager to know all about Indians. But when her interest in us started getting too queer we politely excused ourselves from her. The night went on with occasional dancing, drinking, resting, ogling, comparing, ridiculing, criticizing and checking time every once in a while to know how much longer we have to be in 2005.
Finally the count down started. Thanks to the effect of the open bar the macho guys also decided to shed their macho ness and agreed to dance with us in the dance floor. They seemed to be more comfortable when they were in the dark corners of the dance floor where no one could clearly see what they are trying to do…Nevertheless, we all danced together and welcomed 2006 with the famous Auld Lang Song and blasting balloons that were dropped all over form the ceiling. We danced and spent time there a little longer and then headed back home.
All through the street there were drunken revelers mostly youngsters, at times fighting with each other and other times lost in love. We were too occupied trying to catch a cab to enjoy these live entertainments around us. Another one hour long train journey took us back to home. After spending some time reviewing the pictures of the day and making personal notes of how we can improvise the next day, we all crashed.
The First day of the New Year:
Satheesh and Manoj were very keen on skiing and they made the first resolution of the year that they both would wake up early in the morning and make the rest of us also get up so that we can go skiing to Wisconsin early enough !! But alas, the first resolution of the year was broken even before they could wake up on the first day of the year as no one was up before 10 a.m on that day. All of us were too lackadaisical from the previous nights hang over and it was 12 noon by the time we all got out of the house. We had a late brunch at the Wendy’s and then headed to the skiing area called Four lakes. This was a near by ski location with moderate mountains perfect for beginners. Greesh and I were not sure if we wanted to ski owing to the big falls we had last year. But Manoj and Satheesh were all set to go. We convinced Biju and Rehana also to put on the skis and in a few minutes all of us were in the snow walking, climbing, skiing, falling, yelling for help and laughing at each other!! The skiing as such was not as eventful as last years may be because most of us had become more adept and there were less ludicrous mistakes all through. Manoj and Satheesh had improved noticeable. Rehana was doing way too good for a beginner. Biju had this funny fluorescent blue cap with a pointy end that looks like there is a palm on top of his head waving at you…This gave his pictures a funnier twist and later he was indeed crucified by everyone. In return he targeted me as the victim and spread rumors that I shouted at a little kid on my way asking him to move from my trail and desperately shouted “Mooove Mooove…Mooovedaaaa” !!!
Just before we wound up the skiing, we all posed for pictures with poles. Biju a.k.a Mr. B was not yet done with making fun of me…so he posed for the picture with an expression as if he is skiing into the mouth of a hungry tiger and claimed that’s how I looked like when I was skiing. But unfortunately for him he did not even have his skis on his feet and it looked highly funny to see some one standing on the snow on his two solid boots with full grip and looking as scared as a little mouse trying to yell for help…The picture was made even more hilarious as Satheesh and Manoj were looking at all this ‘Tamasha’ and laughing at him for his Oscar winning performance…Sadly the rest of world will not get to see this picture of the year as Mr. B smartly deleted it off all the system before we could make any more copies of it.
That night, under Rehana’s and Greeshma’s leadership we had sumptuous Malabar cuisine dinner with ghee rice, chicken and all. Greeshma’s friend Priya also joined us. She is a bubbling packet of energy and never gets tired of talking. We had long talks, interesting discussion, belly aching laughs in the company of light champagne !!
The next day it was time to say good bye. Manoj and I headed home first. The parting was sad, but we are hopeful to re unite some where again, very soon indeed
“For auld lang syne, my dearFor auld lang syne,We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yetFor auld lang syne!”
Happy New Year wishes to all….!!!
