Portrait

another new year has come by, everyone. what does it have in store for us?

you know what i love about new years? i love the feeling of being refreshed. i love the warmth and the security that comes with ever new year, as it is with every new beginning, the feeling that you still haven’t been brought enitrely down. it’s like you’re getting a second chance, a new page to write on, an empty board to sketch on. it’s like you’re being told ‘ok. just do what you can to try and make it better than last time’.

the traditional rituals are nice and romantic to engage in, even for one who doesn’t fully believe in it’s alleged implications. for me, they operate more as a leveller than as an indicator as to how’s my year is going to turn out. knowing that pretty much everywhere in the same country, almost every family, regardless of usual social boundaries, their doing the same thing at the exact same moment, is strangely fulfilling. the feeling of universality, or atleast sri lankan-ness is calming and stabilizing. it’s humbling.

i like new years because they hold a significant meaning to everyone. it’s a NEW year. like moving to a NEW place, or having a NEW book, it means that there’s something that you’re life has never before ventured into, or tried out, to be tested and in fact, tasted. it means you get a chance to put certain people and incidents in your OLD year, and start anew, with the NEW year. and no one’s going to judge you. your ALLOWED tom forget, to move on.

it took almost an hour for our milk to boil over this morning. while all of us just decided that the milk isn’t going to boil OVER, period, my grandmother seemed distressed. although in their ‘time’ it may have been natural to believe wholely in the symbolism behind these traditions, i however, am forced to believe that your year will MOSTLY turn out the way you make it turn out, and whatever other things that come your way that are out of your control and command, well… it still depends on how you decide to deal with them.

december 2004, sri lanka was hit by a massive tsunami killing thousands, and displacing millions. i bet in april 2004, our pots of milk still boiled auspiciously over the top. so never mind the milk. it’s hard to have a ‘good’ year nowadays anyway, no matter how well your milk decides to boil over the rim of your pot. people will continue to die in iraq, children will continue to starve in ethiopia, they’ll continue to contemplate the development of atomic and nuclear weapons. so, what’s a ‘good’ year?

at the end of the day, the pope is still dead, the holocaust still happened, and prince charles still married camilla parker bowles. don’t wish for a ‘good’ year. wish for the strength to hold on even if you’re faced with a ‘bad’ one.

have a great year, everyone. whatever it is that ‘great’ means for you.