I woke up this morning, the first day of this new year, to grey skies, sharp showers and a steady wind. Quite unlike earlier years. All kinds of wishes started buzzing – perhaps the rains will wash away the pervasive toxicity of the past few months. Perhaps in breaking a pattern, there is a message for something new and different to emerge. There was also a sense of unease that was incessant, not what I could attribute to the whiskies from the previous night.

It was actually a rather sedate New Year’s Eve spent with cousins and elders. The day had been spent pondering over the year that was; family, friends, and their lives. Dinner done and home well before ten, I found myself at a loose end. I poured myself a drink and chit-chatted with my daughter. We skirted serious questions about life and love, and mundane matters that could easily have triggered the nag in me. She was friendless and I was low on enthusiasm. I wondered how my friends were faring in other parts of the city, other cities and the rest of the world. Maybe I should have been somewhere else. Maybe I was simply resistant to my own company.

A part of me was tuned to the constant noise of speeding vehicles. Must be people racing to get somewhere before the clock struck twelve. To raise a toast, welcome the new year at the stroke of midnight, to sing, dance and scream raucously, hug indiscriminately, hurriedly call or message family, friends, colleagues, associates… and then drink some more to ward off the exhaustion following all this. I know this routine well, first-hand.

Around midnight, the madness of roaring, roaming bikes started and continued for well over an hour. Unable to sleep, I tried to stretch the last night of the year by reading. It didn’t work. I turned to the messages on my phone and found myself responding with variations of ‘best wishes’ and ‘thank you’, when I caught myself in an ‘auto’ mode. I was annoyed with myself. I willed myself to sleep. Thus, ended the year.

So what was the unease this morning about?

The extent of investment in the year-end ritual is astounding given how empty it is. Why isn’t every day the dawn of a new year; welcomed with the warmest of greetings, goodwill, blessings, and the fondest of hopes for peace, amity, good health, prosperity, meaningfulness, fun, joy, happiness, fulfillment, dreams to come true, success, love, equanimity, tranquility… The list is long.

Generally speaking, I am all for socialising, networking, forging new ties, letting one’s hair down, having a good time, making a statement. Why can’t the year-end be just that? They sound like perfectly legitimate reasons to make merry.

It is the rush of compulsive, ritual exchange of wishes that got to me. More than once, I caught myself offering greetings and wishes without the person in focus, without having considered circumstances and what might be most enlivening to the person.

Life is a rough road. We discover ourselves, our path, our purpose, our peace and much else along the way. We lose our way too, and every once in a while, we are prone to escape into our make-believe worlds, pretense and fantasy, particularly so when the ask is too high, the living process extracts a heavy toll, saps energy, and dries up our imagination or inspiration. Wishes and hopes perhaps are ways of pushing out into the open, to project unto others our deep desires when we don’t have the clarity or the wherewithal to make it a reality.

Maybe the issue lies here. My unease.

It is easier to desire than to commit. It is easier to project than to take responsibility. It is easier to mask and hide behind generalities than to respond to the specifics of a person or a situation. So, I can hope for and wish you peace and prosperity. For good effect, I might add ‘God bless’. Think about it. What does this even mean? I am not demanding, commanding, suggesting, seeking. I am not proposing, promising, committing, anything from my end for peace and/or prosperity to prevail upon my friend. I am just extending my wishes and hopes.

Would it be simpler to say: You have been in my thoughts. I care. Let me know what I can do for you to feel safe and secure.

To know that there is someone out there I can reach out to, even if it is to just listen or to hear a voice or a perspective other than mine has been a great gift I have received from some people. Sometimes, I feel it compares with the best that the world has to offer. It didn’t come wrapped every New Year’s Eve in well-meaning wishes.

So, this is perhaps a conversation needed round the year, one-on-one, in small groups of friends and well-wishers, or self in relation to larger systems of belonging… Where are we vis-à-vis each other and what is my commitment to you and us? What do I propose to do in line with my deepest wishes and intents?

I suspect the flood of mails and messages will reduce. It may be less fun. I may have to rework the game of ‘who remembered’, ‘who was first’, and evaluations of which messages were beautiful and creative, mundane or repetitive.

Other things too are adding to the general state of unease.

Increasingly, interpersonal and collective spaces have become superficial. The polarisation and divisive context around us have entered the intimate spaces of homes and friends exposing the fissures and divisions that hitherto remained in the subterranean, unclaimed and untouched land between them. In preferring safe conversations, we give up authenticity and any real consideration of the issues that engage us, agitate us. So, bonhomie is forced, conversations are often stilted, and trips to the washroom or for a refill become preferred ways to disengage. So even the act of letting one’s hair down or having a good time comes with caveats – you can’t speak freely, frankly, forcefully.

Most importantly, what is currently on is apparently a battle for the soul of India, expressed in a vision that is pluralistic, inclusive, secular and democratic. Kashmir remains wounded and its plight under a ‘siege’ nearly forgotten and more recently two dozen or more have died in protests that are continuing. Regardless of our political dispositions, there is perhaps need for sanity, reflection and dialogue, not the numbness of an alcohol-induced stupor.

Maybe it is just me. Taking things too seriously. Not knowing how to have a good time.