In loving memory of 'celebration'

No matter what part of the world you're reading this piece in, there's a festive nip in the air from last month to the next month, and party season is in your face. But what if celebration doesn't mean the same thing anymore? Let's begin here: it's not a bad thing

- Samreen Tungekar

Circa 2008. Good old Orkut days. It was almost December, and 15-year-old me couldn't wait. Christmas is coming - festive cheer et al. What about New Year? How to make this one really stand out?

Circa 2016. Instagram just introduced Stories. It was almost Diwali. 23-year-old me was a bit bummed. Living away from home, no one around, and even Domino's isn't delivering because festival of lights. This isn't how it's supposed to be, I'm bawling, alone. I should be celebrating dressing up, eating a different kind of processed food than pizza. What is this life.

Come 2020. The world is silent. Festivals come and go, one after the other. 27-year-old me, and all of you reading this, are at home - some on Zoom parties, some dressing up just to feel something, some trying to find ways to trick curfews (judging you if you were one of them). Hopefully, next year we'll be celebrating, everyone thinks. Sure, but maybe never in the same way.

Present moment. I'm 30. The pandemic's urgency is over, we've all learnt the do's and dont's of living our lives with coronavirus. But, the last two years were no joke. From losing people to the virus or just from your life, work-from-home induced longer working hours, no sense of time and space, mental bandwidth reduction - we are not the same people that we were in 2019. And it's not the worst thing to happen.