Dolly Koghar muses about what the year’s beginning means for her peers.

We might look old, but we are forever young, at heart.

We’ve stepped into the dawn of yet another new year, 2025; a time to be joyful with high hopes for a year better than all the past years put together, maybe the best year ever. Hello! This would be the voice of the young, with their lives still stretching way ahead of them, in which they can aspire for a better paycheque, maybe find the perfect soulmate, and/or take another bachelorette birthday/anniversary trip on yet another dream destination.

Nevertheless, for us on this far side of the lifespan spectrum, we step into January, gingerly, with our heads bowed in humble gratitude for another bonus year, and fervent prayer to our Maker to help us not voice our opinions on how Sukhumvit is becoming the worst version of Pattaya. Not to mention, how our youngsters have almost forgotten what daal-sabji means or tastes like, and why they are talking… shay-shaaay with accents from anywhere, but our good ‘ol desi Punjabi and so on and so forth.

Okay, so I’m sounding cynical and grouchy, but let’s get the facts straight. With another year added onto our decades, it can only mean an increase in the crackling and creaking of our bones, which will inevitably render us more housebound with nothing much to do but fiddle with our smartphones, which are overly ‘smart’. However there’s the one thing we are good at, in fact, getting better at, and it’s something we will continue to do, and that is parley our ghyan on life for our youngsters. Of course, we see them rolling their eyes and nudging each other about how outdated and unconnected we are with the real world (their world), we’ve become experienced at ignoring it, and will do what we need to do; preach and teach; it’s for their good.

Also, people, age is but a number; inside of us, we remain young, exuberant, and are fully entitled to our dreams and wishes, it matters not how ludicrous and silly, or impossible they may seem. Our will to live life to its fullest, endures!

• “I’d like to visit a nudist colony without feeling embarrassed or shy.”
• “ I wish to see my childhood dream of driving a steam locomotive. (Which are as extinct as the dodo!)”
• “I’d wished to become a professional singer within five months of learning Bollywood numbers—until I realized I could barely pronounce half the words. Let’s just say it was more ‘lost in translation’ than a ‘perfect pitch’!”
• “I’d dare myself to skydive from 30,000 feet.”
• “There’s nothing more than my fervent prayer and desire, that the doc was wrong about my child’s diagnosis.”
• “I wish I could rid of my sober image and go out in public, with my hair coloured purple, pink, green, or even red in alternate weeks, and maybe, be more daring and wear mismatched clothes and mismatched shoes too.”
• “ I’m imagining a Caribbean cruise with a blind date.”
• “Why not dream big and tall; I’d wish to own Burj Khalifa.”
• “ I’d very much want to, very soon, direct a full-blown Bollywood movie.”
• “I’m wishing the year sees me with a quieter mind, to do more naam simran, because now, listening to shabads and satsangs makes me feel happy.”
• “I dream of waking up to a million followers on my Instagram.”
• “An impossibly crazy thought, to age backward, so I can live without trying to impress and please others.”
• “What could be the best New Year’s Day than waking up to see my wife, well and alive, holding out my cup of bed tea?”
• “My fervent desire is to walk off into the sunset, one day, soon, without a clue as to where I’m going or what I’ll be doing; with nothing but the clothes on my back, and a backpack; leaving everything behind, including the phone!”