Happy New Noboborsho by Chawm Ganguly

Happy New Noboborsho

Another Year Gone. Swoosh! Just like that – a Nike logo. Our pockets are empty, our dreams are dead and the Change we had gifted ourselves has become a dread. But was the year that went by, really, truly that bad? Surely, we have learnt so much, achieved such seemingly impossible feats that even the terminally pessimistic Bengali bhadrolok has reasons to cheer?

Take Senior Citizens for example. Our parents don’t grow old and senile any more. We have transformed them into Senior Citizens, replete with a 1 percent accretion to the interest on their FD’s, a discount in air tickets purchased from make my trip and infirmaries where they can be packed off to, far away from our 3 BHK paradise, ironically termed a nest for the wasting. After the Nursing Homes wring their hands in glee and put them into the ventilators, the Doctors don’t shake their heads in grim solemnity no more – they just say that the condition is critical but stable, nonchalantly folding their stethoscopes. In plain speak, it means it is time to track down our insurance agent who will take one to the counter of the finance company next to the reception so that we can mortgage our family jewels to pay for the Cash Less hospitalization expenses that we thought, we had already paid through our nose for the last two decades. And then, to contact the Photoshop artist who will not only remove the warts and blotches but also miraculously transform the picture our parents had had snapped in Kashmir during their honey moon into a coloured one – one in sync with our Klout score and standing in life.