Hi there, First of January. There is something childishly optimistic about a 'New Year'. The fact is, a 'new start' to whatever you want to do, can be done on any day of the year. Yet there is some joy, some anticipation, some excitement as December 31st passes and January begins. The newspapers carry so many adverts about new year bashes. It is almost as if there is a compulsion to 'do something' for December 31st. Almost anyone I meet seems to ask me the same thing "So--what are you doing for new years?" Somehow, the noisy pubs and clubs and bashes and dos and loud parties (commercially organised with a Bollywood diva or a celebrity singing and dancing) with a room full of drunken strangers isn't my idea of welcoming the new year. We usually stay at home for new years. Sometimes we have good friends over, sometimes it is just the four of us. (Satish and I and our two children) If it is just the four of us, we usually have a 'party'