New Year's Ewww

Ah New Year's Eve. An opportunity for people to party and sharpen their mental skills by counting backwards from 10 to one while doing flaming Sambuca shots. New Year's Eve celebrates a time-honoured auspicious event; the fact that your clock works. It is the collective sound of the world going "Whew, we didn't end". Unless the Mayans were right, and the world ends, in which case, this entire article is fraudulent, and you can write to sachin.kalbag@mid-day.com for a refund. Except you're dead,u00a0so ha. Unless you were on the International Space Station when it happened, in which case, go forth and procreate, and tell every alien you meet that the Mayans were a''''les.

Party problems: There are three main kinds of New Year's Eve parties; bad ones, horrid ones, and ‘Makes the holocaust look like Coachella' ones. The third one usually involves a crowded public-space, like a hotel or nightclub

While the actual date is a month away, this is the point at which you start getting texts from friends saying things like "What scenes bro?" Apparently, the correct answer to this question is not "The Solozzo hit from The Godfather, and Faisal's revenge in Wasseypur II." (All refund-requests for horrendous jokes also to be sent to sachin.kalbag@mid-day.com) You may also find yourself part of several Facebook groups, like ‘NEW YEAR AT MINEZ!' and ‘DJ PUMPY LIVE AT THE PINK TOAD!' and ‘PONTY'S FARMHOUSE BLOWOUT". That third one may or may not happen this year. I have been invited to attend an event called ‘New Year 2013'. Just the actual year itself. I'm tempted to hit "Not going" just to see if doing so will see me stuck in 2012 forever.

There are three main kinds of New Year's Eve parties; bad ones, horrid ones, and ‘Makes the holocaust look like Coachella' ones. The third one usually involves a crowded public-space, like a hotel, nightclub, or in one hilarious instance some years ago, a ‘cruise-liner with two decks and an artificial beach' that never showed up, and was replaced by an Alibaug ferry with two feet of space, and a forlorn looking lump of sand in one corner. Passes to that party cost "Did Steve Jobs price this?" rupees and irate party-goers who realised they'd been duped started wrecking the ferry and lobbing pieces of the sound-system overboard. If the Boston Tea Party had happened in South Mumbai, I imagine that's what it would have looked like. (NOTE: All refund requests for that party should be addressed to sachin.kalbag@mid-day.com)

These parties are filled with people in search of the open-bar they were promised. And they're always in suits, which look great until somebody's girlfriend throws up all over them. They also feature performances by whoever had a hit item song that year, so I assume this year, the biggest one will feature Ajay Devgn's Jiggly Pectorals™. The alcohol finishes at 12:01 am, and the night finishes at 1:37 am, when Montu slaps Prakash for glancing at the door to the women's loo, because Montu's girlfriend is also a woman.

Much preferred is the "Let's get together at somebody's house" party, because this way, you can only invite twelve of your closest friends. Six of them will show up, you'll never hear of the other six again because they'll leave Andheri by car at 8 pm, and be eaten alive by those who've been stuck in traffic there since 3 pm. The six who do show up will do so because they sensibly got to your house at 4 pm. But four of them will pass out at 9 pm, because that's what happens when you drop Jaeger bombs at 6 pm because "chal na yaar, everyone's already here".

My personal favourite involves getting out of town the day before, and holing up in a place where the weather's better (aka anywhere past the Vashi Bridge), and the food and drink are great. You get no traffic, you get to choose the music, and you can sleep your hangover away and come back two days later. And that's what I'm going to do this year. Unless the Mayans were right, and the world ends. In which case, please address all refund-requests to sachin.kalbag@mid-day.com. u00a0

Rohan Joshi is a writer and stand-up comedian who likes reading, films and people who do not use the SMS lingo. You can also contact him on www.facebook.com/therohanjoshi