Happy New Year

As we stood under the silver spray of Californian stars,shivering and quivering in the desert cold,an effigy was set aflame...

Written by EXPRESS FEATURES SERVICE

January 14, 2010 10:34 PM IST

4 min read

As we stood under the silver spray of Californian stars,shivering and quivering in the desert cold,an effigy was set aflame; one that would hopefully turn the year that was about to fade into the mists of history and the archives of memory,into locked luggage that would no longer be of any use. As the flames danced and lurched towards the palm trees and the windmills,gnashing their teeth and lashing their tongues,we believed that our slates had been wiped clean,that our karma had been buffed and polished for a brand new innings,and that the darkness would now finally ebb away into a dot so small that it could be swallowed by joys blinding halo in one quick lick.

As the drag queens of Palm Springs,in their Navajo-meets-Barbarella-meets-Inuit warrior outfits that seemed to have been stitched at home under a naked bulb of loneliness,shrieked and hollered like possessed shamans for the year in whos hopeful embrace,loving arms they were now in,I almost believed that there would be no more tears. Silly me.

We all try and escape. The Sturm und Drang or the howling emptiness or the crazy,drunken success that is our lives can cripple us. We all need time out. But do we really get it? I shot my gullet with pellets of popcorn,allowing my derriere to own the seat that it was on while I watched the tiresome Nine,and all I could think of was OMG,my film better be way better than this drivel,and after that,all I saw,was my own film unfolding on screen. As I bundled myself in my hombre-coloured Jil Sander parka and negotiated the snow on the icy New York sidewalks,I felt free and alive and awake and happy to be away from my world,but only momentarily. The sight of two lovers navigating their lips across each others faces made me think of the lovers I had to bait while I was on my American sojourn and suddenly my holiday felt like work. While I guzzled blood orange tequilatinis at the spectacular Boom Boom Room and danced like a hustler to Madonna remixes and laughed like a hyena at the slightest provocation,my soul felt tired and my body ached,and I said to myself,Dyamn bitch,maybe I shouldve gone to that yoga retreat in Sri Lanka instead.

As a porcine Elton John and his posse of ancient and decrepit LA porn stars openly leered at me,I felt not gratification,but profound worry for the person I never want to turn into. Is torment all that I am capable of?

2009 was a challenging year. It was a year that showed me. On the morning of January 1,as I sat in a meditative stance at St Teresas chapel,on a cactus lined street in Palm Springs,(Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe said their I dos there),I felt relieved that it was all behind me,and I did believe that the effigy from the night before had consumed my tribulations and all my fears and my quiver full of anxieties.

Then the earth grumbled,and the tremor beneath my feet shot up right inside me like an electric current,and became a tremor in my heart. The earthquake passed immediately,but what stayed with me was the knowing that the more things change,the more they remain the same.

New fears will replace old fears,and it is the muffling,the obliteration of these fears that keeps us alive. Because thats what the living do. We crave,we want,we weep,we slave,we get,we lose,we burn,we bruise,but we go on. And so the cycle spins. It really is all about the present moment,because the before and the after is just pure gossip.

Hallelujah.

(E-mail the columnist at mozezsingh@gmail.com)

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