No more party hopping

On Wednesday, when I’d come home and changed into my party clothes, my wife gave me a bowl of soup and said, “We’re not going out anywhere tonight, so this is dinner.” It felt strange to be home for a change, though it should have felt good to put one’s feet up and relax. The whole of the previous week, we had been on a party carousel. Not just your calling-some-friends-over kind of get-togethers but wedding soirees that seemed to have all of Delhi society aflutter. This winter, everyone we know — or don’t, since many invitations arrive from acquaintances we can barely recall —  seem to have children whose nuptials have overlapped, necessitating our having to cherry-pick between a cocktail here, a brunch there, and, again, dinner with all the accoutrements of a Delhi-style wedding.

 
With it came the problems “of the developed world kind”, as a friend mocked us. Could one wear the same jacket to a wedding lunch as to a sundowner a fortnight later? Would guests or friends remember what you wore to one sangeet and repeated at another reception? “Yes,” said my wife, when I posed what I thought was a rhetorical question hardly deserving of a response. Turns out, my wife maintains a roster of the clothes she has worn to various functions so all she needs to do is check through her phone album to ensure she isn’t making a sartorial faux-pas. Apparently, repeating a dress or piece of jewellery is an offence worthy of scurrilous gossip at the least, or social media shaming at worst.

 
Meanwhile, I’d got used to my evening tipple and ‘food on circulation’. From experience, I can tell you that thin crust pizzas seem to be the flavour of the season, and since I am partial to them, I began to look forward to my evening victuals. But my wife was more picky. “Let’s have the Purani Dilli selection today,” she instructed me. The previous evening, we’d been glued to the oriental section because it was the caterer’s specialty, and on the day before that my wife had forbidden me from having the pasta because everyone knew the caterer had the worst Mediterranean in town but his haleem was divine. “Tomorrow,” she said — because spouses seem to know who’s doing the food (as well as the hair) — “you must have the Japanese.” 

 

It got so that even the waiters began to recognise us, and would ply us with kebabs and alcohol in the hope of a little baksheesh — which some among our friends tend to find at all surprising. “So much nicer to sit in one place and be served,” pointed out one, when I resisted being colonised in a corner with a limitless supply of spirits and nourishment. It ended up in a lot of wastage, but our friend seemed not to mind since it was the host, not he, who was paying.
 
Nor does there seem to be a break from shaadi fever any time soon. Till the foreseeable future, our evenings are chock-a-block with nuptial festivities and merrymaking — one of which, of course, will be hosted by us. Seeing how I’m a little bit tired of all the wedding hopping, can someone please invite us over for a home-cooked meal and regular conversation?