I am in Bangalore. In a mere half hour the clocks will strike midnight, punctuating the year 2019 with a big, fat, inky period. Excelsior!
Actually, the whole truth is I’m watching—on a computer screen in a provincial American town—a “live stream” of a New Year’s Eve celebration there; a video camera is panning to and fro across a shopping arterial clogged with gregarious, selfie-taking revelers. A bilingual blue traffic sign indicates we are on or near “Church Street.” Hundreds of men, and only men, file past, and we occasionally lock eyes. The women, one presumes, were not invited. Perhaps they are at home with the children. So, it is a night for the boys.
They are dressed in the popular casual garb of the West. American brands—Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Aeropostale, Gap—are ubiquitous. T-shirts, checkered flannel, striped track suits, hooded sweatshirts, black leather jackets, camouflaged parkas; the gamut is on display. Duos and trios saunter and slink (yes, slink) past the camera, pausing to photograph each other or the crowd with practiced smiles as whistling policemen in wide-brimmed colonial hats usher them along with friendly nudges from bamboo poles. Many are holding with one hand a cell phone and coiffing a head of black curls with the other. One dons a set of plastic red devil horns. Another has the flag of India painted on his cheek.
I’m flabbergasted—the men, more often than not mustachioed or bearded (but carefully trimmed), hold hands or walk with their hands placed on the shoulders of the man before them. How lovely. This kind of intimacy amongst friends is absolutely taboo in America, where any intimation of homosexuality is a mortal threat to one’s masculinity. Hardly a hand here is buried in a pocket—these people touch each other. And the affection is genuine and beautiful. And unique. And yet, by all other visual accounts, these men aspire to be Western (“No Rules, No Limits” reads one passing red t-shirt), to be like us—materialists, consumers, inevitably atomized and suspicious of each other. How I want to shout through the screen, “Stop! Beware!”
Tonight, however, is no time for melancholy. I am transfixed by faces. The “peace sign” is omnipresent, casually posed across the chest or waved high for effect. “We are young, and all is well,” they seem to be saying. Every man, more-or-less indistinguishable in dress from his American cousin, exudes a kind of sincere cool long rejected by the ironic, pallid urbanite stateside. I long to take their hands and join the parade, to ride the obnoxious squeaks of pink toy trumpets and a chorus of whooping partygoers above the din. Here, perhaps, is real brotherhood (or—it must be considered—real misogyny, given the total exclusion of the fair sex).
It is almost midnight now. Some begin to jump in place, their arms high. Victory! More phones emerge. Perhaps they are texting their wives and mistresses. One bewildered man is hoisted by friends into the air and passed over the heads of laughing strangers. Another, like a child, mounts the shoulders of an acquaintance and pumps his fists. A policeman, resting on his stick, smiles with a pinch of envy.
May we, in the age of the Ministry of Loneliness, be so fervent in our own aspirations for human fraternity, lest we repeat the mistakes of our great-grandfathers.
Image: euronews. (31 December 2019). Happy New Year India! Bangalore welcomes in 2020 with celebrations [Video file]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/hzJuQIpCjVo
Impolitic 