or interestingly.. Happppi Noo Yur!!!! 
ok.. so did you notice something lunatic last night?? were you not at the Besant nagar beach (BSB) last night??
I was.. and i am glad i was. It atleast cleared my doubt as to wat “decently lunatic” really means. Funny combination eh.. going by the facts, lunacy means going insane around full-moon time. is it that you start thinking ‘over’ your head following moon’s raised gravitational pull? maybe.. And last night’s experience was nice, having experienced it among a decent chennai crowd, which was decently loud. 
Well, yday, the 31st Dec ‘09, started out as a regular day. for the first time in my life, i just wasn’t excited abt THE new year. (petty reasons.. anyhow, just wasn’t excited.. simple) just another plain simple day. least bothered abt the day to come. bored of answering, everytime a dear one wish-called me, to say i had no plans for the night. And then, it was in the evening, a couple of hours before midnight, that Sri n Chidu called up to check with me for any ‘as-usual’ unplanned plans for the night.. and jotted down to his idea of taking a walk. just a walk?? i thot. ok we would go to the beach annnd.. take a walk. Better! So at quarter to 12, we drove swiftly from his house to hit BSB asap. and as we entered the road to BSB at the shastri nagar junction, it felt like the famous road had just ended. all that was within my range of visibility was hundreds of people, hundreds of bikes n cars gushing and rushing in from all directions!! all onto just one road.. the road to BSB! and there definitely had to be some blasting DJ or a heavy open-for-all live concert with Tolly stars on the other end!
All the roads were so amazingly packed that if it were not the new year’s eve, i would have definitely chosen to drive back or chill out at somewhere easier to hover thro to, or easier.. stay home. But this was THE eve, man.. (the semi crazy/lunatic in me, awakening) And by now, we were sure there WAS some big concert awaiting us there. So after struggle-biking thro all other equally crazy-dezis (me still semi-crazy), parked somewhere far, safely, and started walking towards the 1.5 km to the actual BSB, still excited to see some loud speakers n DJ.s, though we couldn’t hear any yet through the loud crowd.. it was hard to figure why one was so loud, and added to that, most of them were blowing phompoo.s, so loud.. man it was irritating, but still, ok be it so.. it’s new year’s eve, and there’s a big music concert up ahead! so be it.. let them scream.. and here n there, we screamed in unison too “happy new year!! happy new year!! happy new year!!”. YO! new year spirit, man! some ppl even frantically jumping over everyone wishing new year. I told my frens - guys watch your wallets. (but i’ll definitely catch that guy selling those phompoo.s someday! )
Ok.. so we kept walking n walking, cutting thro the crowd, and hit the 2 km long beach road stretch, which makes the manmade boundary to the 200 m wide beach, only to see the crowd grow denser towards the centre of the beach road.. now we could see the crowd till the end of the road and also on the beach.. and slowly we were realising, there were no huge sets or speakers, no concert or DJs 
!!!
Boy, i wondered, then why the loud crowd??? people jumping and screaming for wat reason or wat excitement?? ok, i agree it’s THE new year eve, but still..! frankly, i haven’t a crowd so wild for such a reason, that too, never in Chennai! there was no loud music, no big stars (or no stars), no bike-stunts, no jallikattu.. but it was simply all crowd, crowd and more crowd (and the phompoo.s… urghhh) for no real reason!! …………..hmm.. for no real reason? and then Sri ”ah what a moon above.. AHA Arey!! don’t look at it directly!! see it with your camera.. lunar eclipse tonight.”
BinnnngO……! So, THAT it was, i agreed to myself. New year + full moon + lunar eclipse! Bingo!! perrrfect combination.. (“chance ey ille da”, as they say ) so, THAT it was!! People had just gone lunatic! and Everyone made to believe their own behaviour as the New Year adrenaline rush. now it all made sense.
The real lunacy just adding up to their New Year lunacy.. and it was interesting to see everyone acting over-their-head even if not drunk while they were not originally used to.. (the decent chennai crowd), so appeared as overreacting and hence, funny. Well, the new-year coincidence still eclipses my this understanding, coz i guess they would’ve been cool if it wasn’t the new year night. maybe, maybe not. watever it be, we enjoyed our time just seeing everyone hyperexcited, n going excited ourselves. And still glad that we maintained our balance. or did we?? (”happy new year!! happy new year!! happy new year!!”. YO! new year spirit, man! ) he he.. guess we could not. or was it the Happy New Year paradox - the already in-josh crowd - hyper-enthu!… it was the new year bait and we eagerly tended to grab a feel of it ourselves too.. so we went under-control hyper-enthu too, momentarily… AND.. AND.. mayyyyybe, the latest additions to the crowd saw us overreacting, looked at us as ‘lunatic’, n they too wanted a piece of it, and went under-control hyper-enthu themselves, …. and so on.. and so on. that’s wat i call the Happy New Year paradox! it’s all happening but u have no idea why n where it started, n also u don’t wish to control it. you just lose yourself.. blame it on New Year night for all the craziness.. or hmm… just let it be.. guess, it was an amazing way for everyone to shrug off all their frustrations of the year in a night, and a gesture of freshening up, through an undrunk hangover. so, be it. good that it happened altogether. Cheers! n Happppi Noo Yur once again
and when i thot about it later, my day had acctually ended so well, unlike how it started or how i thot i would end.. just can’t evade the new year bug, can i?
and here’s a glimpse of our wrongly blamed half reason:
ps: our time at the beach also included some serious resolution-making (hope another blog follows), eating cookies that my uncle had brought, witnessing n capturing the semi-eaten moon, relaxing on the less crowded beach sand, casual chitchating, n ofcourse, frantically wishing everyone a new year..
and speaking of new year n moon, i remember i really wished to catch up with the movie New Moon soon.
