Resolutions- To honor or to break

“Quitting smoking is very easy. Mark Twain once mentioned that he did quit smoking a thousand times” Sujan said and started laughing. Sujan Chandy’s wife Mini Mathew frowned at him and added “I tell you friends that I could change many things about this man including his dressing sense and social etiquette but could not stop him from smoking”.

Sujan got up from his chair, walked towards Mini, placed his arms around her and said “Do not worry dear. I shall give it up”.

Many friends had assembled at the house of the Chandys to celebrate New Year eve with fun and frolic.

Pramod Kulkarni added “Talking of new year resolutions I should say that no one takes resolutions as seriously as Susie” referring to his wife Susan D’Souza. He continued “Imagine the stress both of us underwent as it was an inter religion marriage about two decades ago. Without any one asking for it she gave up eating non vegetarian food for my sake. Till date she has not touched it again”.

Everyone clapped and Mini said “Susan is of different DNA altogether. She has enormous amount of patience and adjusts to situations well”.

“Where is Rohit? Did you not invite him?” Subha asked Mini.

Sujan replied “We did invite him. We sent the invite to everyone in the Whats-app group a couple of times. You know Mini well. She sent messages to everyone and followed it up with a phone invite”.

Pramod took out his phone and dialed Rohit’s number.

“Strange” he commented keeping his phone down “His number is switched off”.

“Let me try Suruchi’s number” saying so Susan dialed her number. To her surprise it was switched off.

“This is very strange. These two guys are very active on social media and are the most accessible couple of our group and right now we are not able to contact them” she added.

Suddenly the mood in the gathering became glum and the group looked concerned about Rohit and Suruchi.

“Rohit’s 'last seen' in Whats-app is four days ago. Imagine a guy who is always connected, keeps checking at least once in 5 minutes and suddenly stops doing so. No updates on Facebook either” Balan said.

Everyone became busy with their smart phones looking for updates from Rohit on various social media platforms.

“This is worrisome now. I haven’t seen a single day wherein he has not updated in social media and now it's been 5 days since he has not said anything there” Balan continued “ Hope everything is OK with him. Neither he nor Suruchi are accessible now as their phones are switched off”.

The glum mood continued and the friends who had gathered to enjoy the New Year eve were silently having their drinks and occasionally looking at one another.

It was about 11 PM and the silence was broken as the calling bell of the house rang. Mini got up and opened the door and to her surprise found Rohit and Suruchi standing outside.

She shouted looking back “Guys cheer up! Rohit and Suruchi are here”.

Suddenly the group erupted in joy and all of them ran to the door. Sujan rushed to Rohit and giving a gentle blow on his stomach said “Where were you guys? No news and no updates on social media. We were very concerned”.

Fifteen minutes later the friends were sitting on the respective chairs and were in a very relaxed mood. Rohit started “I'm very sorry to note that you guys had to go through this because of me. In fact I was not happy about my over indulgence in social media and told Suruchi that I wanted to completely cut off my social media activity. I took a resolution to stop all my updates and since 5 days have not opened Whats-app, Facebook or other apps.

Yesterday morning we got a call that Suruchi’s mother was not keeping well. We took the next flight and reached Indore. Today her condition has improved and so we decided not to skip this get-together and started back.”

Balan was immediate to question “Then why were your phones switched off?”

Suruchi replied “I think you tried our numbers while we were in flight. We landed and came straight from the airport. Look I have the luggage with me and have kept it in the corner there”.

There was silence in the hall for a few minutes.

Pramod broke it and said “Rohit we do understand your concern about your over indulgence in social media. Totally cutting off is not an answer for that. Your resolution should be to reduce your time spent for it. Detachment from social media is not about completely coming out of it. It is more to ensure that your life is not dictated by it.”

Rohit nodded in approval.

As midnight started inching closer each one started telling their New Year's resolutions and hoped that they would honor the same the coming year.

Mini said “Everyone has told about their new year's resolution except Susan. What about your resolution Susie?”

Susan smiled and said “I do not make resolutions every year. A couple of them I have made and have been honoring them year after year. So my resolution on every new year's eve will be to stick to the resolutions already made.”