New Year's Day 2008

Happy New Year !! SMS after SMS trying to say it cuter, better than the previous one. Sometimes you got repeats, some were repeats from last year. The one thing they all had in common was they added to the prosperity of the telecoms.

Last year, I spent New Year's eve with friends, and then New Year's Day and the 2nd of Jan trying to get back home - thanks to the thick fog enveloping Delhi.

I am determined to eliminate fog as a cause of inconvenience this year - so I take flights that are scheduled to land in daylight. So far it has worked.

We were ushering in a new contract in Mumbai over the end of the year, so I decided to park myself there.

Despite the 2nd trip to the ENT at Sadr Bazaar, the throat was doing poorly. So I weighed my options. Go to a party with friends where I am likely to want to talk and laugh - both activities that result in incessant coughing. Drink alcohol which the ENT said was a no-no. Eat fried foods - my favorite - and one that instantly irritates my throat. So eat veggies and no dip, sit quietly and sip warm water and watch others laugh and drink - or crawl under the covers and watch soap operas .

Odd as it may seem - soaps, a comfy bed and room service seemed far more appealing than agitating my throat further . As I was informed by someone - I must be getting old. To prove that this was not true, I decided to have a drink with a good friend at the respectable hour of 7:30pm. The ENT would not begrudge me the one dirnk would he ?

Every restaurant and bar in the hotel was gearing up for the grand party - the bar was open - but they had moved all the chairs out. Old people do not stand and drink - they sit down . So do I !! So we leaned upon the maitre'd at the coffee shop to let us in for a drink. There was a grand buffet and table was set up for the party - with stars sprinkled on the cloth and gorgeous masks for the event later in the evening.

Making conversation with the young server - who wanted to know if we were here for the party - I told her I was Scrooge's granddaughter. To us "old" fogeys this seemed like a very funny and appropriate statement of my state of mind with respect to partying in the New Year. But the young lady seemed very confused. Any doubt I had about whether or not I was from another time and place vanished when the young lady said she had neither heard of Charles Dickens nor of A Christmas Carol.

Had my drink, and went back to my room. The phone was ringing off the hook. One of my not so young colleagues wanting to discuss a work problem. Done by 10:00 and I got into the red pyjamas with the paw prints and climbed into bed . And the phone rang again. Another colleague, another problem. We were joined by yet another colleague around 11:15. And before I knew it - it was 12:30am. Midnight had come and gone. The New Year was upon us, and I hadn't watched a single soap operat yet !!!

And the SMSes kept flowing, the revellers kept dancing downstairs, and the network switched to a telemarketing show. The cough meds kicked in and I fell into a deep sleep !!!! HAPPY New Year !!!