Three reasons to party hard this New Years Eve
By the time Pakistani children grow into adults, they acquire a blanket aversion to anything fun. Music, dance, theatre, even laughter is frowned upon by the society around them. Their idea of enjoyment thus starts with a sugary black cola or some haram beverage and ends with tearing into an always halal chicken. The only choice they exercise is between breast and thigh pieces.
But when it comes to stopping others from having fun, they are full of ideas. From friendly advice to turn a ghazal concert into na’at recital to patrolling the streets on occasions like Valentines Day and New Years Eve, breaking parties and beating couples for holding hands, they’ll go to any limits to establish that if it is fun, it must be un-Islamic, un-Pakistani and un-something or the other.
A brand New Year is upon us, and with it comes the question of what to do with it: To party or to attack a party? Here are three reasons why Pakistanis must choose the former, even if they don’t know how to, and end up running naked in the fields or swimming in sewage channels as some communities are known to do on New Years Eve. If you ask them, even a clumsy and apparently messy attempt at revelry is a lot of fun for both participants and spectators.
Reason 1: Just do it
Years don’t come and go, we do. And we have invented years to measure the time while we live in it. Years mean nothing, months and days even less. December 31 and January 1 are just as ordinary days and the night between them just as usual as any other day and night, in any year.
This is also not the night when light showers from the sky; a full moon brightens the earth; or a moonless, starless night casts a spell of darkness. No celestial activity to mark the occasion. If you only banish news media from your home you cannot tell one wintry, foggy night from another, and one balmy, sunny day from another. And yet January 1 is a symbol of hope and the night of 31st December the mother of all parties, for people around the world, regardless of their religion, social status and ethnic origin.
The New Year means nothing except an excuse to party, to meet up with friends and family and cheer each other. An occasion to reminisce and reflect; a chance to pick up the pieces and start all over again; to celebrate the good things one got and change the things one is not comfortable with. In this sense, the New Year serves a purpose, regardless of the date and time it is observed on, and regardless of the manner in which it is celebrated.
Even if the occasion is used only to party all night – to sing, dance and laugh one’s way out of one unit of time and into another – it is a healthy and productive activity. It is especially so in a terminally sick country like Pakistan. The harsher the curbs on public display of amusement the more important it is to put up a display. Joining strangers in revelry and venting some of the pent-up frustrations is therapeutic if nothing else, and our only chance to preserve sanity.
Reason 2: Because the end is postponed
The world was supposed to end on 21st December. For those of us who have been hardened by false apocalyptic alarms in the past like Y2K and Skylab, the Mayan prediction didn’t mean much because we have created dozens of calendars just to dodge fate at a crucial juncture like this: At the end of the Gregorian year 2012 we are only in the second month of the Islamic year 1434 and the 8th month of the Bengali year 1419. In the Hindu calendar we are in the mid of year 5121 and this is year 101 or 4649 in the Chinese calendar. Punjabis following the Nanakshahi Calendar and will celebrate New Year as usual on March 14, a few days around Nouruz in Iran and Afghanistan.
No two nations and peoples agree on what date it is today; no wonder the Mayans are demanding a recount. But the fact of the matter is, the end of the world passed us by without harming us and without announcing a later date for visitation. That is reason enough to celebrate.
Reason 3: We can do better than ants
Every time you put your foot on the ground or a vehicle’s tyre rolls, ants get killed. That does not make ants fear the boot or the tyre, or they wouldn’t be known for their industry. They have giant boots and tyres flying above them all the time, each of which has the potential to kill a whole family, or a whole colony, but they ignore them completely and go about their business of running around and carrying things. They look ahead with a sense of purpose, and not above with fear.
We, too, have giant boots and other dangers flying above us all the time. Natural calamities and epidemics continue to surprise us with their timing and ferocity. Man-made disasters are growing ever more frequent and vicious. Deadly weapons are being used in ever-increasing number to settle cultural and religious differences. Traffic accidents and certain medical conditions eradicated from the rest of the world, continue to afflict Pakistanis. Each one of these factors can and does kill one or many of us, in an instant, wherever we are and whoever we are.
We find ourselves helpless against them. Unlike the ants, we have technology, and rocket science, and knowledge, and skills and power, but we are no better at protecting ourselves. The difference between the possibility of an ant being run over and that of a human perishing instantly, is only of proportion. In this country, certainty is equal for both.
And the choice is between living to die and dying to live. Choose to live and eventually die, or keep staring at the boots above, shiver in fear, and die every minute of your life. The ant says a boot or a tyre will crush me when it does, but I am not killing myself of fear before then. Pakistanis need to do the same: Work and party like there’s no boot coming down on us.
Masud Alam is an Islamabad-based writer, columnist and journalism trainer. He can be reached at masudalam@yahoo.com
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
I will have to say there is a lot the west can give us, and we can learn from them. Really, partying, that is all you got from them?
“The choice is between living to die and dying to live”
Disagree with you sir. The real choice is between living while obeying God and the Prophet or living while disobeying God and the Prophet. The rest are just the details.
You don’t get to define choices.
good
good work !
Loved it! Yet we have a few comments reminding us to be pakistanis and of islamic values. Keep up with the good work
Excellent
Nice read ! I had planned on having a quiet drink at home on 31st night, but after reading this, rather think I may actually go and have it outside.
BRAVO!!!
Nice one!
How can anybody party without beer?
Awesome!! A positive message to a frustuated nation
i like the ant example.
I am first.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.
ROBERT BURNS
“The choice is between living to die and dying to live” rings my bell. At Okinawa in the Anti-Japanese War a battle raged between young Japanese Kamakaze pilots fighting through heavy flack to die and young America sailors manning anti aircraft guns fighting to live.
Ants have no ideology and they don’t use The New Year as a reason to get themselves drunk.
We celebrate what in the New Year? that every year will be better and better? That everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds? That each will have his chance?
The Chinese always celebrate with hope in the New Year that unity and hard work will keep paying off.
Those American sailors fighting to live kept them from becoming the worker ants of the Japanese.
The Chinese people have never been enslaved by an ideology. Confucius taught them first of all to obey the emperor. The Japanese taught them the Ants will never be stepped on again.
Some of us celebrate the New Year when we have a reason to celebrate. Others celebrate the New Year hoping they will have something worth celebrating next year. That determines our lives – success or the lack of it, not the years going by.
During The Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year) people return home from across the nation and across the World to celebrate their success in The New Year with their families.
A young Malaysian Muslim school girl messaged me from Perak in Heaven …
“They (the Chinese) celebrated it huge. Fire crackers and fire works kept me awake all night.”
Her Chinese next door neighbors also did not fail to give her Ang Pao, the red packet filled with money that “eldest sons” give to their sisters, and the Chinese exchange with each other in the New Year.
Hadi Ati’s envelope was fat because her father is a general in the Malaysian marines, and the Chinese know how to lay brick. Success must be shared for any of us to be happy.
Pakistan is an Islamic state. Lets not make it a stooge west.
Anyone who does not like the Islamic values of Pakistan, is more
than welcome to leave Pakistan.
Whew. Your comment is ‘way off the mark. It’s not a matter of leaving Pakistan. 99-plus percent of the world’s population already isn’t in Pakistan. It’s a matter of such narrow-mindedness, shown in your comment, suggesting to that 99 percent that it’s not a good idea to do business in Pakistan.
Come on, join the world. The article is excellent.
.
“The only choice they exercise is between breast and thigh pieces”. haha. They now even frown on demanding breast piece. They insist on calling it a chest piece. Fun,minus the women, ours is also becoming a gay society like that of the Kingdom we revere so much.
Great write-up!
Its quite funny that this is a country where on one side 1000s of people are dying of hunger, with no roof on top of their head and with no clean water to drink while on the other side there are people who are so busy with their luxury lives spending 1000s at lavish restaurants and partying.
tariq habib khan says the learned writer should tell any good moment of our beloved prophet muhammad as to when he partied. and how and why can we claim to be a nation when KPK is bleeding and the whole country is under taliban and foreign invation. is there any time to party when thousands of people are dying each month. how and when do we get serious about our selves and our country and our children. mr masud must answer me if he has any idea or courage. 2ndly who said that drinking and hooliganism is only party. why we cannot party by voluntering for community service and helping poor and the needy instead of taking mud or severage bath. reply on 03478844066
Dare to say the same when ppl party at a victory of a cricket match?
How very true and thought provoking. A very well written article. Keep up the good work.
same whip-lashing the religion in the name of ‘open minded conservatism’…
just like you cant blame the whole society for a few outrageous liberals likewise you should not be blaming the whole religion based on acts of few ignorant mullahs, but looking it as an excuse to vent out hatred towards religion (which, no matter how much you dislike, remains to be the fabric being of our society) is being as narrow minded as the person who is stop others from party…two sides of the same coin.
What an irresponsible writeup? “That does not make ants fear the boot or the tyre”. We are not ants. Though we can try to be like ants by throwing away what makes us human. Some logic, I say.
Unlike Ants, we have the means and a choice. One can find happiness by diverting the same same resources over the course of two days on the thousands affected by various calamities. But, each of us are free to exercise our own free will. Peace !!!
I gave you a thumbs down, even though I liked your message.
beautifully written man. hats off. this is what we need ..to know how to live free..and more than all “to live our own life at least” which is not the case with almost everyone living in this country..keep up the good work.
I m indian and tried hard to the writing of your writers, certainly there is difference between indian and pakistani writting, while writers here don’t beat around the bush and directly hit the core issue, the writer there are more Jane Austine style and beyond comprehension and mostly revolves around subject leaving reader to make judgment, non judgemental i must say. Perhaps barring one or two writer mostly abstract.
I am sorry I don’t understand what you are hinting at. Could you be more direct please.