Suresh Menon: Happy New (almost) Year
January 1 can be called the Day of Recovery from Lifelong Excesses That Peak on New Year’s Eve
Considering what happens on New Year’s Eve, I suggest that we officially regard January 2 as the start of the New Year. For one, most people wake up groggy and tired on January 1, thanks to partying until the wee hours. Is that how you want to begin – with a headache fit to rip your head off, unable to focus on anything?
Then there is the matter of resolutions. The two most common are: 1. I will give up smoking and 2. I will not gorge on foods that have added feet – not just inches – to my waistline. This is difficult. Those who smoke are likely to be smoking at the stroke of midnight when the year formally begins, and those who love to eat are likely to be in the midst of another refill at the same time.
Those who do both are likely to be doing both at 11.59pm. To stop abruptly and give up everything within the next 60 seconds is both undesirable and impossible. It might even cause major health problems.
So January 1 can be called the Day of Recovery from Lifelong Excesses That Come to a Peak on New Year’s Eve and the next day can be the start of a fresh, clean new year.
There are other advantages too. No one will call you up on the morning of January 1 when you generally tend to feel like something the cat brought in, to wish you a cheery ‘Happy New Year’. There are few things so guaranteed to inspire you to throw your phone at a nearby television set as a chirpy, guilt-free voice on the phone waking you up at nine or 10 in the morning, just minutes after you have gone to bed, to wish you good things.
“Shut up and get off the phone,” is not a response recommended in books on etiquette.
All wishes and words of commiseration can be left until January 2, when you are well past the regret/remorse stage and feel that resolutions are for losers, and are not for you – or at least not this year anyway. Of course, if you do insist on January 1 being the start of the year, there is another alternative: let the day after December 31 be designated January 0. The 0th day of the year will be for recovery, recuperation, reconciliation, and reconnection.
It will, of course, mean a minor readjustment of the calendar – and a tweaking of the rhyme. Thirty days hath September, April, June, November and January.
The choice, therefore: January 2 to start the year, or January 0 as a pit stop before you start the year.
You decide!
