Grounded on New Year's Eve

Source: Photo: Darshan Chakma

The stack of wedding invitation cards on the coffee table signifies the beginning of winter in Dhaka. Winter has always been “party season” in the city, with loud Bollywood music blasting from every nook and cranny. But winter is also host to New Year's Eve parties all across Banani, Gulshan and Baridhara [aka the Bermuda Triangle]. Or at least it was. For the past couple of years the higher powers have taken a stand against the number of people going to Hotel Check-In and Fancy-Pants Inn at the dead of the night to “par-tay”. So on New Year's Eve the Bermuda Triangle is off-limits and no one is allowed in or out of the area. All these regulations, barricades and check posts make partying in any way quite similar to having a Model United Nations in North Korea.
But if you're not going to party on New Year's Eve, when are you going to? So here are some ways to still have a good time without friends. Trust me I would know. I have a friend. He's stuck inside the closet but that counts, right? Right.
MUSIC
This was pretty obvious, but bear with me. I'm sure you have many, many gigabytes worth of tunes on your hard drive that you love; beats that you secretly dance to when no one's looking. Well, we're not going anywhere near that. In order to replicate the perfect party ambiance we're going to blast music we loathe. Corny Hindi songs should do nicely. Because what's a party without Dhoom 3794623931?
ENVIRONMENT

Source: Photo: Darshan Chakma

If you've seen a lot of bad movies and sitcoms you would know that the usual atmosphere of a party involves a dark, trashed room with flickering coloured lights that give “normal” human beings headaches and the abnormal ones a reason to buy more glow sticks. There's also a toxic brew of so many questionable smells that you might begin to think that spending the night at a cattle-farm would've made no difference. I mean, lots of people getting together in a place to get themselves branded while drinking from the same trough. It's pretty easy to simulate all that. Just turn the lights off and there's no difference especially with Skrillex feat. Dhoom.
That tiny shelf that houses all the random body sprays and deodorants that have never been touched will finally be of some use. Spray all these “fragrances” to create a synthetic aroma that could smell like anything, from sweaty men to chocolate to mosquito spray. And for the weirdos among us, pepper spray!
I am just going to presume that you're a model human being and your room is tidy and neat, with everything in its place and not an inch to the left. One way to trash your room would be to empty your entire closet on the floor. Yup, having your unmentionables out on the floor. The place is starting to look like a real party-zone now.
FOOD
The ACTUAL food that people have at big parties in Bangladesh is pretty much…nonexistent. In an effort to be cool people simply drown “mocktails” and watered down malt beverages imported from Arabia. You could go the easy way and just stock up on Appy Fizz. It's the closest you're going to get to looking authentic.
OR you could use the thousand and one different kinds of teabags your relatives bring whenever one of them goes to Sylhet, and make something worthy of the New Year bash. Every Bangladeshi worth his/her rice has got a motley selection of teabags at home. Add that to the unprocessed gifts from Sylhet that just sit there and you have an entire arsenal of tea. What would happen if you used all those different teabags and leaves in a single cup? A tea cocktail, and a pretty damn awesome drink. Earl Grey mingling with local leaves, the prime Bangladeshi tea with Captain Picard's favourite flavour -- what could go wrong?
ACTUALLY DOING THINGS
You're armed with your tea cocktail in your trashed room that would do any college frat party proud, glaring at the computer screen as you're listening to the latest Bollywood hits. Now it's time to start partying, except there's no one to party with. You notice that a lot of your friends are online and have nothing better to do either. Instead of sharing memes on Facebook, you could break out the big guns for the occasion and talk via Skype. Cashing in on your connection's fair usage policy points shouldn't be a problem since the start of the new month happens in a few hours.
The options are endless when you're video chatting. Okay, maybe not endless, but it's more than what you're doing at the moment any way. You could play card games like UNO. Maybe even Pokemon and Duel Masters cards if you didn't throw your childhood away in an effort to be cool years before. The minute of lag on Skype should make it easy to cheat too. Playing charades also seems like a viable option if you feel like you're too old for childish card games.
But if you absolutely have to play games, you can't do better than online games. Age of Empires, DoTA, League of Legends, you name it. It's all incredible fun. What's a better way to bond with friends and ring in the New Year than conquering the virtual empires built by them? Although you probably won't be able to win. Chances are, just as you are about to destroy the enemy castle your Wimax 3.5868G connection will give up on you. Don't worry. The fireworks in the distance should be loud enough to hide your shouted expletives at the modem.
People say that what you do on your first day of the year marks the rest of it. In that case, I'll spend the rest of the year alone with my cyber friends keeping me company as I drink questionable things while the authorities ground me at my home for my own safety. What freedom. What cow dung.