December Madness

This was published on 11 Dec 2010 in the Mumbai Mirror and on my site www.manfrommatunga.com. Here is the archive link.

Come December, and things go completely out of control. Each and every December! Without fail! And it only gets worse with each passing year.

January to November days usually go like this! Go to work in the morning on weekdays and sometimes on Saturdays. Back from work in the evenings on weekdays and in the afternoon on working Saturdays. Dine at home with the family virtually each weeknight. Try and get out for dinner, just the two of us or with friends on Friday or Saturday nights. Spend time with the kids with perhaps a movie, on Saturdays and Sundays. Avoid weeknight parties, dinners or events, unless absolutely essential or necessary.

And then comes December!

It actually all starts in the last two weeks of October, when the first invitation to a December wedding arrives. This is the beginning of a steady trickle that soon becomes a deluge by the last week of November. These cards come in all shapes and sizes bringing invites to weekday, weeknight and weekend weddings, some in the city, some outside, some in the afternoon, some in the evening, some from people you know, some you’ve never heard of, most on different days, but sometimes three in one evening. 

While those getting married seem to find only December to take the plunge in, friends and relatives from the Western world also start popping in; some with prior intimation, some without warning, some leaving the next night back, free to meet just today, some allowing us a little more planning and preparatory time.

And since 1/12th of the population of India was born in December and 1/12th of the married population got wedded in December, anniversary and birthday celebrations continue anyway.

This is also peak annual conference season.

And there are 24th and 31st night parties.

It’s madness!

And so to manage all this sudden surge in social activity, we land up going out weeknights, sometimes with back-to-back double-dinners, sometimes with lunches merging into dinners and sometimes calling people home for dinner and then taking others out for late-night coffees. And then to make some sense of this madness, we start looking harder at the wedding invitations and start dropping some, starting with those who we don’t know. (Why don't people print their phone numbers on wedding cards? At least with a contact number, my secretary could call and find out who the invitation is from!). 

The world is made up of two categories of people; those who believe that every invitation has to be attended come what may (these are the ones who will tell you how they have just come to the Turf Club on the way to the Cooperage after having attended weddings in Vashi and Chembur, whining away yet proud of the fact that they are going to be able to beat their last record of 2 1/2 weddings and one funeral) and those like me who believe that it is our prerogative and decision to pick what we want to attend and what we don't. Every wedding and party that one is invited to does not have to be attended, just because there is an invite. 

Even with all these rejected invites, I’ve given up! There are more events than I can cope with. Going out on weeknights only screws up work the next morning with all the post-alcohol grogginess. So that leaves only weekends, of which there are only four, with one public holiday this month also falling on a weekend.

Forget about work-life balance. I need a life-life balance. Any advice?