(A saner, sober version of this blog appeared in The New Indian Express Jan 1st, 2020 in my column ‘Urban Bourbon’. If you live in Bangalore, do remember to pick up the Tuesday edition of the paper. This is the blog version, and is meant to be cruder. Thank you!)
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Viewed objectively, a New Year is just another revolution by Dharti Mata around Surya Devta. It is a run-of-the-mill (or a circle-around-the-sun) matter. But if you looked at the celebrations, you’d assume humans discovered another planet to fuck over.
New Years is a day when everybody makes money. Expensive restaurants, liquor shops, Babas who promise salvation while the rest of the world is engaging in carnal karma. Personally, New Years has always been a bit of a mixed bag.
It is also true that everybody spends money on the day. I have been to those New Year Bashes, where people fight for alcohol like the world is ending. Food is ‘unlimited’, and there’s always that one asshole who decides to show everybody what he’s consumed all night. As sense dawned on me, I chose to spend the night with a wide vista of substances inside me.
But it is only when we wake up the next day that we realise that the happiness and joy were temporary. That social media is still annoying as fuck; that life is still a long struggle against colleagues, children and parents.
And resolutions are responsible for this disillusionment.
The concept of New Year resolutions began with Babylonians who kept promises to please the gods. While priests in our lands were cursing each other and everybody else in sight, the priests in Babylon followed a peculiar custom. On the day the new year began, the king stood in front of the gods without jewelry and clothes. The priest would then slap the king till he shed tears, to prove the gods’ superiority. Clearly, the need to participate in a social custom on New Years existed even back then!
But somewhere down the line, resolutions stopped being about promises to god but to oneself. And that is where things begin to get murky. It is easier to expect things from gods, but to expect things from ourselves is taxing on the soul.
Apparently the most common resolution is to lose weight, followed by saving money and eating healthy. I have no idea how the survey was conducted, but it turns out that only 8% of Americans who made resolutions went on to achieve them. This is clearly a crisis and Yours Truly has found a solution.
The trick to achieving New Year resolutions is to set a really low bar. To set realistic, achievable resolutions that appeal to the mind and body, without being taxing on the soul.
And this is where I speak from personal experience. Every year, my top resolution is not to kill anybody. I know it sounds easy, but it requires some resolve and patience.
Haven’t you ever been watching a film only to find a kid howl like a feral wolf? Didn’t you fantasize about stuffing popcorn into the evil child’s mouth? Or how about the guy who jumps the line while you’re waiting for a ticket for your train? Didn’t you ever consider jabbing the nibs of the three Pilot Hitecpoints that you carry with you, into the guy’s posterior?
But with this resolution, you exercise restraint throughout the year. And at the end of the year, when you find yourself hunting for places to party, and not a space in the jail to lie down at night – you’ll find that it was all worth it.
The other resolution is a combination of eating healthy and saving money by uninstalling Swiggy and Zomato.
I do not believe in Christ, the Holy Father, or the Holy Principal – but I’m sure the two apps are the work of the devil. With their hourly notifications nudging you to eat the trash that’s being produced around the city. Offering discounts that get you further addicted to their products. At the risk of sounding like a spaced-out conspiracy theorist, I firmly believe the two apps are evil.
Also, fast food costs money and causes anxiety. One must choose one’s food, and then track the little scooter on the app till it reaches one’s house. And then accept the food (hoping it is untouched), and then give the delivery person 5 stars and a tip (‘Concentrate on your studies’ doesn’t count, apparently).
The trick is to only consume slow food. Food that takes time to cook, to eat, and to get rid of. Not only will you lose weight, dear reader, but you will also achieve a double-whammy of saving money.
I know what you’re thinking – these hacks, not resolutions. A perfect new year resolution must make you work every day, and involve coordination between body, mind and soul. It must give you a sense of overall happiness and satisfaction. Allow me to reveal my final resolution – to kill as many mosquitoes as possible this year.
Mosquitoes are the largest killers on earth, killing more living beings than even human beings. Killing mosquitoes will not incur the wrath of animal rights activists; even Maneka Gandhi has no sympathy for mosquitoes! And thanks to capitalism, one can choose from mats, creams, gels, liquids, badminton racquets and ultrasonic devices – to get rid of the evil creatures.
Life is frustrating, and every once in a while, you’ll feel an urge to smash somebody to pulp. Climate Change is real, and World Peace sounds like something grandmothers will narrate to little kids when they sleep under the stars in dystopian times. And while life does not allow us to express our truest desires, it gives us the freedom to kill mosquitoes.
So there you have it. A new year resolution that will keep you working all year, and will also give you and your family a sense of purpose. On that note, dear reader, I wish you a Happy Mosquito and murder-free New year. Please avoid getting confused between the first and second resolutions – the trick is to be nice to human beings, and evil towards mosquitoes – achieving nirvana in the process! Happy New Year.
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