Happy New Year!!

We welcomed the New Year in the middle of nowhere. A bunch of people who did not know of each other’s existence a few months ago, came together to usher in the New Year with a lot of pomp and splendour.

We had a costume party today. It was quite the challenge because we could not have Google sensei’s help for anything. Cheena decided to be Wolverine, and he had my complete approval and aasheervad. I’ve always wanted to see him don the Wolverine look. I was going back and forth from cheerleader to school girl for my look, but I finally settled down on catwoman – I had all black clothing and all we had to do was a mask.

We sat down to work on his look with used cartons, gum, paper cutter and aluminium foils piled up on the chart table at the bridge. In half an hour, Wolverine had his Adamantium claws. We fixed those claws into a cardboard holder that Cheena ingeniously thought of so he could hold the claws properly. I decided to add a cigar and wrapped a crushed origami paper onto rolled cardboard. Perfect. Next, we just had to do the beard and the hairstyle. Borrowed hair gel and blow dry took care of the horns in the hair. I used my kajal and marked the portions that he had to shave off from his face to get the look. When he shaved and worn his brown leather jacket, I squealed. He could have played Hugh Jackman’s dupe in the X-men movies.

My catwoman look was a different story altogether. We hardly had any time left and the mask that Anne Hathway wore in the movie was too high level. Cheena quickly cut out a mask and we hurriedly painted it with a permanent marker. Attaching the strings to it was a pain and we had to staple the thread to the mask. Well, I at least had bright red lipstick and black leather gloves, so I guess I scored a pass mark. 

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I then helped the chief officer with his look and went around the ship asking everybody who they were dressing up as. The chief officer’s costume was a gunny bag sewed together with slits for the arms, a bandana which had hair made out of ropes and a sword made out of some spare part from the wardrobe covered with an aluminium foil. We even made an eye patch.

We had two pirates (one was called captain “black sparrow”), an old beggar, a fraud godman, a guy holidaying in Goa, a pandit, Sai Baba, cadet Ghajini, a mummy, a fisherman…. It was amazing to see people’s creativity. This was REAL creativity without internet’s help so it was all the more special. We all had a good time laughing at each other’s look and clicking pictures.

We had a vote for the winners – the only guy who participated from the engineering department won the 1^st place. I don't even remember what he was dressed up as; he hurriedly put on some random cigarette packets over some brown sheets and had some no smoking message written on it I think. The great Indian voting pattern worked here too – hamaara bandha hai, gaon wale gaon wale and all that. You vote because you like the person/you work under the person/you and the person share a common language, caste, job etc. All in the spirit of the game! Anyway, that apart, Wolverine came 3^rd. He won $15 as prize. Which obviously belongs to me.

The countdown to the New Year happened at the bridge. I was playing the DJ juggling Hindi and Tamil numbers, and our iPod died exactly 2 minutes before 12. We all ran up to the bridge and cut the second cake that was bought in Thailand. You could hear fully drunken cries of “Happy New Year” and hugs all over. I went over to the bridge wings. A mild breeze was blowing and the moon was shining down in the direction of the ship. Everywhere else was pitch dark, but the water sparkled where the moon shone. It was quite a sight.

It is a new dawn. It is a new day. It is a new year. And it was a wonderfully new experience.