Shashi Warrier | A New Year’s Party That Ended Too Soon

On the evening of the first of January, my wife Prita and I were sitting down to our evening tea when the doorbell rang. On the doorstep were my ex-professor friend Raghavan and his wife, both slightly haggard and bleary-eyed. Raghavan raised a sealed bottle, saying, “Something to ring in the new year... But do it tomorrow.”

I led them in, and, at their insistence, Prita poured them tea. “Nothing to eat, thanks,” Raghavan explained. “We were up late last night with some colleagues, and we’re just getting over the hangover. Unlike you!”

“Yes,” Prita replied. “We were out visiting relatives last night, a very sedate lot.”

“That’s a good way to welcome the new year,” said Raghavan, “but I have colleagues and clients to manage, with an entertainment account to help.”

“I remember new year parties in Bangalore,” I said, feeling a wave of nostalgia. “There were these noisy congregations at which we watched people dance the new year in, and office parties where we all got drunk and swore a lot. Those were the only times when, if there were clients around, we could tell them exactly what we thought of them. The police weren’t so handy with breathalyzers so we rode our bikes back home... But the first of January wasn’t a holiday so we were zombies on the morning after.”

“We’ve realised the damage a serious general hangover can do on a working day,” said Raghavan, “so now we make it a point to give everyone the day off.”

The doorbell rang, and there, to my surprise, stood Murthy. “We’re not celebrating anything,” I said as I led him in.

“I hoped not,” he replied. “Yesterday’s celebrations will last me a week. I came here knowing you won’t be hungover.”

I went off to make Murthy some coffee — for some reason, he wanted it black and strong — and when I got back with his steaming mug he had settled down in his usual place and was listening to Mrs Raghavan tell us about how two office parties — husband and wife both worked with different companies — could do much more damage than one. “And since everyone is celebrating, most people depend on public transport, which is not very good at these times...”

The phrase “public transport” set me off on a journey to the past, to sometime in the early 1980s, when I with an economics news magazine in Mumbai, then Bombay. I wrote a couple of articles on the side for a strongly leftist weekly journal that was making a reputation for well-researched papers. One practice this weekly followed: All contributors were invited to a New Year’s Eve party at their austere office.

This was about five minutes’ walk from my own office, and I arrived there at seven in the evening on the big day to find it packed with strangers. The place had no internal walls or cubicles: Partitions were bookshelves, all full, made of slotted angles and reaching well above my head. These partitions had been pushed aside and a larger party space created where a table stood loaded with snacks and beer.

The editor himself, then in his forties, very soft-spoken and dignified, greeted most visitors at the door, making them welcome. I got myself a bottle of beer and a plate of potato chips and settled down at the back to watch the other guests loosen up.

About an hour later, spirits were beginning to rise, and someone suggested an arm-wrestling match. Everyone was game, including our editor host. I was among the youngest at the party, and had been going very slow on the beer, so I was relatively clear headed. As I watched, someone challenged the host, a lean, wiry man, then in his mid-forties. Our host agreed, and took his place at the table, facing his young opponent. To my surprise, our host didn’t lose!

But then, he didn’t win. He refused to push anyone else’s arm down, but I do remember that no one at that party could push his down either. I chanced my arm — I was reasonably fit then, and in my twenties — but failed to push his arm down, no matter how hard I tried. This was the first time I’d met anyone who refused to give ground but didn’t want to beat anyone either. I was dazzled.

The others soon tired of this. They expected more, and got it: stories. I stayed off the beer and heard some surprising tales about famous people. A loud cheer went up at midnight, and when we broke up I was still sober. In the cool breeze outside, a colleague and I tried to get a taxi, failed, and walked to Victoria Terminus to take a late — or perhaps early — train home. I left for Bangalore soon after that party, and drifted into computing. Parties grew louder, more spirited, and less memorable.

Raghavan’s voice brought me back to the present. “I don’t enjoy these parties but the boss thinks our younger colleagues do. It gives us all a chance to bond. So he keeps up the tradition, despite the expense and the trouble and the extra day off. But I personally don’t like it much, or its after effects.”

Murthy spoke up for the first time. “I’ve begun to think new year parties are like marriage,” he said.

“What do you mean?” asked Raghavan.

“You regret going to them,” replied Murthy, “but if you don’t, you end up regretting that you missed them!”

Not really, I told myself, remembering that long ago party where the host had dazzled me, the only new year party that broke up too soon.