…and thank god. Not one of my favourite years, this. And yet this date-to-date construct is misleading. Some months were good, some bad. Really, some days were good, others bad. But we need our spans, our lengths, our life measured out in new year parties (if not coffee spoons). And the events of the past two months have led to a general agreement that this was a terrible year.
It makes me wonder about those who fell in love or got married or had babies or struck it lucky / rich this year. Do they feel guilty or want to say, ‘er…but it wasn’t such a bad year for me.’ Do they feel the world’s anguish crowding in on personal joy? Do they feel pressured to relinquish it? I feel a little bad for them.
No matter what kind of year you’ve had, this definitely is a time for hope.And who can blame us for sorely needing some? So I was thinking about hopeful poems and Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh came to mind. (Do read her disclaimers / disowning of it. Heh.) I rather like it precisely because it is one of those simple, feel-good poems but it reminded me of how hard it is to write about happy things without sounding greeting card-ish. My attempt at a new year poem resulted in something fairly bleak which I won’t impose on you right now. So instead, here’s New Year by Rachel Hadas, and for those who like it the old-fashioned way, Ring Out Old Bells by Tennyson.
And a bit late in the day, here’s Mrs Scrooge written by Carol Ann Duffy for Christmas.
Happy New Year. Have a safe one.
Poetry with Prakriti is on between the 16th and 30th of December in Chennai. I will be reading on the 20th at Vastra Kala and Goethe Institute, and on the 21st at Oxford and Apparao Gallery. I don’t know the timings yet but they’ve promised that the schedule will be up on their site soon. If you’re in Chennai at the time, please drop by for one of the readings . 
The entire list of poets is here.
Update: The schedule…
Saturday, 20th December
11 am at Vastra Kala
4 pm at Goethe Institute
Sunday, 21st December
5 pm at Oxford Bookstore
7 pm at Apparao Gallery
Perhaps it’s time I talked about something else. But here is OJ tracing memories of her home:
And that one over there was my perennial threat from Nana. “If you don’t eat like a lady, how will I take you to the Taj?” And so I fed my face like a well-trained robot lady at 6, because the Taj, as we know, is The Taj, and every 7-year-old dreams of a Shamiana ice cream with a pink biscuit stuck in it. In college, our parent Rotary held its weekly meetings at the Ballroom and we’d gatecrash them on flimsy pretexts so we could devour pastries from the Sea Lounge. It was earlier this month that the Boy and I strolled outside the ‘old’ Taj while I narrated the story of Watson’s Hotel and how an insult founded this magnificent structure.
And then there’s yet that other one, the Victoria Terminus that was our pride as we carted suitably admiring foreign visitors around, reveling in what was ours. The first train in India chuffed off from here we’d point out, as their eyes took in the gargoyles and gothic grandeur. So many bleary-eyed childhood trips were flagged off from its innards. Two minutes away at college, we’d laugh about how every Hindi movie has its one obligatory VT shot to depict arrival in Mumbai. What would we know about arrival, chronic natives that we were.