Page 23 - Seniors Today - January Issue

First Person
A sepia-toned
turn of the year
There’s a kind of magic in a child’s experience of New Year’s.
By Vandana Kanoria
Most of my childhood is stored in the taste
of Quality Street chocolates, the smell of
dewy green grass in winter, the feel of hand-
knitted sweaters…
The best part of New Year’s Day was the
New Year’s Eve, that day of feasting and
fun, merriment and loud countdowns, late-
night adventures, and being so happy for
tomorrow that I could not sleep at night.
December 31 was always marked by a big
shining ‘P’ - presents! It was the only time,
other than birthdays and Diwali, that elders
bestowed their largesse upon us. Excitement
knew no bounds as we cousins piled into
the convertible Chevrolet, with my normally
strict grandfather who indulged us every
year on that day with a trip to Paragon, a
toy- and bookshop on Calcutta’s swinging
Park Street. We were expected to behave
and conduct ourselves with propriety, good
manners and choose just three things. I lived
in Enid Blyton land and always chose books,
three being a painfully small number for
thin paperbacks. Laden with our brightly
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #19 | JANUARY 2021
coloured packages we would drive around
the glittering fairyland that was Park Street
where Santa ruled from Christmas Eve till
a few days after the New Year’s. There he
sat in his enormous sleigh, piled with gifts,
beckoning and tantalising; where colourful,
twirling tinsel curled around Christmas
trees laden with shiny baubles. If we had
behaved ourselves, we would be taken to S Kumar
that place of love and longing - Flury’s, or to
the tony and posh Skyroom, and be treated
to pastries, Baked Alaska and a brightly
coloured iced drink poetically named
Orange Blossom.
Priceless moments
Were these little things? Small moments?
They weren’t little at all. They were the stuff
of childhood memories.
It was perhaps the only day we were
allowed to stay up late –beyond 12o’clock; to
wait for our parents who were celebrating
the end of the year in glamorous and ritzy
night clubs like the Blue Fox, Moulin Rouge
23