By S Datta

This year's nobel-laureate V.S.Naipaul described 'microphone' as 'an Indian inevitability' to immortalise in his controversial maiden travelogue 'An area of darkness' on the country, a noisy and emotion-surcharged Mohurram procession organised by the minority Shia muslims in Srinagar way back in 1963. No parallelism is invoked in the context to say that an element of 'inevitability' will mark the widespread use of microphone in the new year celebration on January 1st and the night preceding it. The club culture in Agartala as well as in otherparts of Tripura has grown with the settlement of Bengalis and the few whose membership is restricted to white collar 'Babus' adept in boozing the night out and sprinkling English with outlandish accent in Bengali sentences are drawing up plans to celebrate the new year in a fitting manner. 'There will be the latest from Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton on CDs and lot of boozing and eating till late night ' said Mr D.K.Roy an officer of the state government and member of a small officers club called Sunday Evening . This is how several other small and 'elite clubs' plan to celebrate the new year eve and the advent of the much-awaited year. However, none of the common clubs located in various areas of Agartala town have any such plan though most of the grown-up members will individually and collectively celebrate te occasion 'only for merriment'. Mr Santanu Dutta, an office-bearer of the town's leading club 'Mouchak' said 'it is an occasion for merry-making and no ritual celebration is involved. we will enjoy the day and the preceding night, eating, drinking and listening to music on microphone'. The advent of the new year on January 1st however evokes mixed feelings in the tribal community which has been at war with itself over the past few years on the issue of preserving traditional faith and culture and embracing christianity. A bizarre manifestation of the state's tribal youths' search for an identity distinct from the'Hindu Bengalis' has been the zeal among the baptised armed militants to convert their brethren at gun-point. This has met with resistance from traditionalists in the society led by Jamatya 'Hoda Okra' (Head priest and community leader) mr Bikram Bahadur who now tops the hit list of the banned outfits. "Before that we would never mind our young ones celebrating christmas and new year but now things have become complicated' said Mr Suresh Koloi of Ampi in south Tripura. A tribal farmer and avowed follower of 'Sanatana Dharma' Mr Koloi has arrived in Agartala to buy 'suitable things for his grand children keen to celebrate new year. A man in early seventies Suresh Koloi can not make out why his jean clad and english-educated son Robi is so keen on wasting money on 'foren songs on peculiar machines' and dancing like children. 'I do not understand all this but he is now earning ' said a dejected Suresh Koloi who considers his son's readiness to eat beef 'a cardinal sin', attributing all this to 'changing times'. The sign of the times is also evident from the plenty of 'hot food', confectionaries and cakes that line up newly set up stalls even though big timers like Macdonnalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) are conspicuous by absence. The 'tail-piece' of the run-up to new year is the hectic preparation being made by a group of cultural activists to organise a competition called 'weaving the best yarn' in local Rabindra Bhawan. The participants in the competition will be expected to tell the biggest and most incredible cock and bull story and given titles such as 'Gapa Raj' (king of yarn), "Gapa Samrat' (emperor of yarn) 'Gapa Sri ' (beautician of yarn) etc. Leading poet Mr Swapan Sengupta who is on the organising committee said 'We wish to enter the new year with hilarious laughter and joyful hearts and that is why this novel competition is being organised for the past few years'.