The day after Christmas is the Boxing Day; one puts all the extra eatables in boxes so as to give them away. I look forward to it.
But, I look forward more eagerly to the second of January. It is the day for normalcy to be restored after the final day of previous year and the first day of the new year.
Both those days are hectic; celebrations and calls, resolutions and urgency, desire to do something memorable, new and different. It is a territory not different from Christopher Colombus’s setting sail to discover the new world, unfamiliar and challenging.
But, unlike Columbus, one doesn’t have to wait for eternity for familiarity to return on the very next day, the second of January. There is no illusion (eg, to call America as Asia, which Columbus did). The clear vision itself is fully restored for most people within the time the earth has recorded one full rotation around its axis in the new year.
Indeed, in the New Year, there is nothing more welcome than the Second of January. First of anything is always daunting; ask me, both in the class and on the race track I always belied the expectations of family and friends by being nowhere near the top spot. But, Second has always been dear, like a close friend. No one ever expects or demands of me to come Second. There is no pressure. If I make it to this spot it is a bonus. If I don’t, no one even notices. I feel like the Army recruit in camouflage drill just merging with the landscape, trees and bushes.
This is also a very cushy spot; no one wants to dislodge you from it. Take politics, for example. Everyone is after the number one position: PM or CM. The second spot lends you that anonymity that makes your position much securer than the top spot.
Returning back to Second of January. All the shine of the new has worn off. All that frenetic activity to wish you or be wished by you, all those video calls that don’t allow you to loosen up, all the greetings wherein for each one you have to sound sincere and different, have subsided. Those high and menacing waves of the New Year Tsunami have fizzled out. One can actually hear the gentle notes of the Second of January, the flutes and not the cymbals, wafting across the distant horizon into your recently turmoiled home.
If both these dates were to be personified, ie, the First and the Second, and elections were to be held, I would vote for and second the Second. The First is always a dictator, authoritarian and with vested interests. The Second is always a benign ruler; somewhat similar to Nawab Wajid Ali Khan of Oudh enjoying music and dance and totally oblivious of the First, ie, British Forces marching to usurp his nawabdom.
Second of January is the World Introvert Day, that is, for millions of people like me who never want to be in the limelight or in any other coloured light.
In the year 1906, on this date, Willis Carrier obtained the patent for world’s first air-conditioner; he, too, knowing that nothing is as laid back as the Second of January.
This was the day in 1954 when India established its highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. Ever since that, we have been wrongly giving the award to the best, the most talented, and the most politically suitable person; whereas, if you have been following this essay closely, it is the second best who is more deserving of the honour. Imagine, yours truly being conferred with this honour because of being Second everywhere and every time and the PM attending my funeral when I finally kick the bucket.
All in all, I feel that the First of January is highly hyped up. Imagine the media hype for Rohit Sharma and his team in Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad and how relieved were they when Cummins and Co. put them out of their misery and they embraced the joyous relief of being runner-up. Their j.r. continues unabated in South Africa, too.
Except for missing out on the momentary spot at the top position on the podium, those who come Second are actually the true winners. They take life and its challenges in their stride and enjoy everything to the hilt.
Given a chance, I would recommend that the New Year should skip the First of January as a day of unnecessary stress and challenges, and go straight to Second of January. In any case, during the current year, no one would have missed the First of January since an extra day has been added to the end of the second month, February.
February, on the other hand, has this to say to the makers of the Gregorian Calendar: “Just leave me alone, dammit. Don’t forget that I am just the second month and in my position, no one would even notice the number of days that have been given to me to live.”
The First World War, your first love, your first experience at trying to bicycle, and Edmund Hilary, the first man to conquer the Everest…ugh. They all had the most difficult times but, the seconds are always more popular and celebrated. Take World Wars, for example. At least four times more people perished in the second as compared to the first, but, more movies have been made and more books published about the second. About your first love, the less said the better.
