This weekend I was part of two traditions here :

1. Halloween : I am not too big on celebrations of any kind, but I was in Santa Cruz this Saturday evening and we decided to visit the downtown Halloween celebration. We had a few funny wigs, but that’s all — no elaborate full-body costumes.

Halloween is probably the closest it gets in the U.S. to the Ganpati celebrations of Pune. Age, color, social status no bar, everyone is one the streets making a complete fool of themselves while having the time of their life. It was fascinating to be a part of it. From babies that could barely walk, aged people who could barely walk, to handicapped people in wheelchairs (some were in a wheelchair as a part of their costume) everyone was in their costume. I hear elaborate planning goes into the Halloween costumes, as we saw some superbly creative ones. So creative that I cannot mention them here !

To add to that, I forgot the memory card for my camera, so you could say ‘I was a photographer’. Since I don’t fancy Halloween costumes, maybe I should celebrate it in the southern states next year. If someone asked, ‘What are you ?’, I could just say, ‘I’m an Indian’, and they’d stare in awe.

I must add that being on the streets is way better then attending the Halloween party thrown by some desi dudes, or any party for that matter.

2. Daylight saving – Every first Sunday of November, the clock goes back an hour. Daylight saving is switched off from November to March around here.

Now to the point, I don’t understand the point of switching off daylight saving. As they are lobbying in a few states, I’d like to be on a year-round daylight saving. It is depressing when it starts getting dark at 4.30 p.m. Since most businesses run until after 5, I don’t see the point of switching off daylight saving. No one would mind dawn at 7, methinks.

I haven’t read of any quantitative research proving the benefits of switching it off, but I won’t be surprised if it was a frustrated Ph.D. student who hacked the dataset to come up with some path-breaking results. As they say, if you can’t prove it, you hack it.

It was worse when I was studying. I’m not a day-person and prefer to work at nights. There was a time during a heavy winter quarter that I didn’t see daylight for a week — I was asleep when the sun rose, and the sun was gone when I awoke.

Stupid daylight saving.

On that note, daylight saving used to be switched off in October until recently. Two senators advocated moving it to November to allow children to go trick-or-treating in more daylight. True story.