Let's year it for...

Now that 2013 is winding down, shenanigans, scandals, scams ‘n' all and we hurtle into the New Year, we are looking at a ditzy, glitzy past and an even more tumultuous future. It is election year in 2014 and the ballot dance, more than anything should rule the roost next year. So do your last bhangra, belly dance (six pack abs, please) or whatever, as soon the only entertainment that will be on is something called Neta ki Nautanki.

Illustration/ Amit Bandre

Meanwhile, one is thinking about whether Santa Claus, cool dude that he is with his reindeer sleigh that saves on petrol costs, cruised down Santa Cruz while recently in Mumbai for Christmas. Actually, rather an inane thing to think about and strain one's sparse grey cells but then, like they say, it is that time of the year when it is time to ring out the somber, serious and sane and think about how endearing it is to go slightly off-kilter, slightly, crazy even.

So on that light, supremely idiotic note, this columnist is wondering…

>> Whether Santa slid down Mumbai's malls as all mills with chimneys have turned into malls these days?

>> Whether Baba Ramdev and assorted yoga gurus would groove to: ‘let's do the twist again' this New Year at a bash?

>> Whether at least next year, talk show host Oprah Winfrey would marry US-based new age holistic healing guru Deepak Chopra and become Mrs Oprah Chopra?

>> Whether one of Mumbai's crumbling heritage forts can be revived with a te-killa shot?

>> Whether the best New Year resolution for 2014 would be to be an ‘Indian Idle' this year?

>> Whether Mumbai's maids must start an Arm Wrestling League 2014, as all that jhadoo-katka has given them formidable bai-ceps. (Move over, John Abraham). This could be on the lines of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with top corporate honchos like the Ambanis, Mallyas, Wadias and assorted names from India Inc. bidding for the best bais in their team. Aga bai, may the strongest win?

>> And when talking about jhadoos, whether one broom tells another in a sweeping, romantic moment -- jhadoo teri nazar, khushboo tera badan?

>> Whether Mumbaiites will not take car loans this year, but ‘parking' loans considering how quickly parking rates are zooming in the city?

>> And while on loans, whether banks will start giving loans to people for buying onions on Easy Monthly Installments (EMI), colloquially speaking and people will say to each other: I have to pay my onion EMI?

>>u00a0Whether all motorists tired of traffic deserve some good car-ma this year and whether you have heard
of this one: my car-ma ran over my dog-ma?

>> Whether our actors earning crores for five-minute dances at New Year Eve bashes, will soon start demanding Rs 80 lakh for a pelvic thrust, Rs 1 crore for a hip wiggle and so on in these days of super-specialisation?

>> Whether a dentist can be arrested as an extractionist by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in the city?

>> Whether Mumbai's New Year revellers who partied in aspirational Alibaug (psst all those celebrities with their bungalows there) know the Mumbai tapori term… Alibaug se aaya kya? Which really means do you think I am naive or foolish? Eeeeew. Just so downmarket dahling

>> Whether for India, never mind the Supreme Court verdict on re-criminalising gay sex, 2014 should be the year in which love dares speak its name?

>> Whether a box of mangoes are now part of Arvind Kejriwal's ‘Aam' Aadmi Party (AAP), and it is the campaign that has made Sheila Dixit go (aa)phoos?

>> Whether cows will ask for the absolutely latest in moo-bile phone technology?

>> Whether Gujaratis will start flying to the moon this year on space flights as part of space tourism and carry their theplas and khakhras with them? And maybe some of those snacks will fly away because of gravity. Then, they would create international excitement as clueless-about-khakhras Caucasian astronauts would report back to NASA saying they had seen Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) floating about
in space.

>> Whether a chessboard would be arrested in the New Year as a venue for pawn-o-graphy?

>> Whether Manmohan Singh-ji and Sonia-ji danced to: keh do na, keh do na, you are my Sonia at a New Year bash? And, whatever our shortcomings, concerns and criticism, you know you are reading this and I can write this because we are still a democracy and not a kela desh (Banana Republic) as people claim in disgust?

>> Why with all these scams and exposes, pressure cookers across the city are not awarded Z-class Security because they are the original whistle blowers and always under such great pressure?

Why, when you can spend the last weekend of this year thinking about all the good, great, ambitious, mind-boggling things you plan to do in 2014, are you wasting your time, reading this tripe, anyway? u00a0