New Year

New Year evokes many interesting memories.  I grew up in Kochi, which is a port city.  My earliest memories of New Year are associated with various events at Kochi.  Kochi is probably the only city in Kerala which can claim to have people belonging to a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.  Apart from Hindus, Muslims and Christians, we have Jews, Gujaratis, Marwaris, Punjabis, Sikhs, Jains, Kutchi and many more at Kochi.  Each of them has its own festivals.  But New Year means Cochin Carnival for Kochites, especially for those living in the western part of Kochi.  Cochin Carnival, similar to that in Goa, is a weeklong festival from Christmas to New Year. Many events are organised as part of the Carnival.  It concludes with the burning of the ‘Papanji’, a huge effigy erected near the beach at Fort Kochi at midnight of December 31.  The effigy is filled with firecrackers and its burning at 12 in the midnight is a spectacular scene to watch.   

Another attraction of Kochi is the loud siren from all the ships anchored at the Kochi port.  The captains of the ships organise New Year parties.  At exact 12 in the midnight, all ships would blow the siren for a minute to welcome the New Year.  The siren from ships was the signal for Kochites that the New Year has arrived.  My house at Kochi was close to the port and we used to wait for the siren.  If you are planning to visit Kochi, the time between Christmas and the New Year is the best!

New Year Greeting cards are another thing of my childhood.  We used to get 10 days holiday in school for Christmas and New Year.  So, as soon as the vacation started, we used to go to shops selling greeting cards and buy cards for family and friends.  Wiring the message inside the card, writing the address on the envelope, and sending it by post was fun.  Then, we used to wait to receive the cards sent to us by others! The WhatsApp forwards of today can never evoke that feeling which we had when we received the greeting cards by post.

There are a few not so pleasant memories as well associated with the New Year.  In 2018, when my mother was not well and was admitted to the hospital, I used to stay in the hospital during the daytime and my brother during the nights.  On the night of December 31, when my brother relieved me from the hospital, I went to his apartment, which was on the fourth floor.  We can see the huge cranes of the Kochi port from the balcony of the apartment.  At midnight when the ships blew the siren and firecrackers were burst all around, I stood there, in a pensive mood as my mother’s condition was critical.  Three years later, in 2020, I travelled to Thiruvananthapuram from Bangalore on 30 December.  Due to the Covid restrictions, I was supposed to be quarantined for a week.  So, I checked into a hotel meant for quarantining people travelling from outside the state.  I was allotted a room on the sixth floor, from where I could get a beautiful view of the eastern part of Thiruvananthapuram.  At midnight of 31 December, when the New Year arrived, I could see very few firecrackers as there were restrictions on the celebrations.  Though people were celebrating the arrival of the New Year, the atmosphere was filled with a lot of apprehension and anxiety.    

I hope and pray that we are out of that phase. 

Let me wish all my readers a Very Happy New Year - 2023