Battling the holiday season bug

The concept of holiday season in India is lost primarily because every season is holiday season. The highest traffic jams per festivals have been achieved in Mumbai every year as we dance and sing on the streets in our various celebrations. An average of 1 "long weekend" per month in the means that people will drive out to places like Pune and Lonavla to hang out with the people they were trying to get away from in the first place. Every market looks like Archies Gallery on cocaine pretty much all year round. If there is a holiday season bug, India is permanently in pandemic state.

Among one of the many things that holiday season is purported to bring- one of them is lonliness. Airline ticket prices soar through the roof in anticipation of people returning home to their families, train tickets are so unavailable that even typing irctc.com into your browser will give you a "Hahaha, don't be THAT optimistic" pop up on your computer. If everyone is going to be with family and buying expensive gifts for each other, then who are these lonely people? As the Beatles song suggests- where do they come from? where do they belong?

I'd like to admit that holidays and the surrounding excitement makes me resentful. Every conversation is always two sentences awry from the dreaded "Toh what plans for New Years/Christmas/Diwali/Gudi Padwa/Gandhi Jayanti" discussions. It's always the folks who have plans who will ask this question. Not because they want to hear yours but because they want to tell you theirs. And as is obvious, everyone is planning something so much cooler than you have in mind. "I'm taking a helicopter to Dubai with super models friends" one will say. "I'm going to pet puppies in a Vietnamese orphanage" another will purr. "I'll be having dinner on Mt. Everest." someone else will chime in. (Just to clarify, I've only heard one of these in real life, the other two just sound very cool).

For 5 years I have aggressively stayed away from doing anything entertaining during the holiday season. In my mind, I was giving the finger to fake happiness and togetherness that is supposed to be the hall mark of holidays today. I have worked through most major holidays because the idea of even celebrating intimidates me. Who will I celebrate with, what will we do? Working through it seems like the best route. So when cornered into discussions about upcoming celebrations and looking at pictures of past ones of an acquaintance I've always nodded indulgently without the worry that I might have to contribute to the discussion with some mindless piece of information about my life.

As 2014 ends I look at another holiday season as it dances on our streets, screams at us from hoardings and gives us a 50% discount to buy a mattress.This year, I finally put myself through a holiday without working. To just sit and experience the pandemic of happiness- even then it's the side effects that sometimes hit us the hardest.