Party time

We all know that there is a polite time by when guests should arrive at a party, but is there one when they should depart? Living in Delhi, given the city’s long working hours and its even longer traffic jams, “See you at 8:00 — 8:30” means hosts need to be prepared to receive their guests post 9:00 pm (“eager beavers”), with 9:30 being peak arrival time (the “on-timers”), and those coming later making up the “stragglers”. There are at least a few who always show up closer to midnight, as a result of which dinner is delayed, and the drinking continues for longer than you had anticipated.

Time was when having an all-night party was a measure of its success. But some years back my wife began to insist that dinner be laid “early” – implying midnight, or thereabouts – because the next morning brought with it “office” (me), “meetings” (the kids), or a “kitty lunch” (her). This was a time when the children didn’t want to interact much with our friends and preferred to retire to their rooms. Their own entertainment was strictly outside the house.

At some stage, though, they discovered the benefits of bringing their parties home. There was the access to a variety of booze (free), food (also free), and service that was not accompanied by a request for gratuity. At first, we were pleased at the turn of events (no more worrying about what time they would return home), but the tables were soon turned on us, we discovered, because “our” party days did not suit “their” party days. 

As I write this, a kind of peace has been brokered — not entirely to our liking — about who calls the dibs when it comes to entertaining at home. My wife and I have been restricted to having two kinds of parties – those for “friends”, which our children are willing to commingle over by way of “mixed” parties to which they now invite their married friends, as long as we take care of the organisation and the arrangements; and those for “family”, on which occasions they plead their unavailability and choose to have themselves asked out instead. Then there are their parties, which include the “casual”, which may or may not be spontaneous, with friends staying over if they’ve had too much to imbibe, and for which pizzas or biryani might be ordered in (I get to pay); the “professional”, which means they need everything to be scaled up to full service, involving gourmet cooking and the finest bar the home (or their father) can offer; and, finally, the “celebration”, which is basically just an excuse and an adda for kids to hang out together. Because most of their friends treat us like the furniture, the whole house, including our bedroom, becomes their chill-out zone while I am literally left to walk the dog so he doesn’t make a mess of the living room.

This leaves the clearing up to be undertaken the following morning — a task that has “traditionally” always been mine: the glasses to be put away, the icebox cleared, the refrigerator returned to sanity, the crockery, cutlery and napery stored, the carpet aired and the furniture restored to its original setting. The staff will likely stay away, so there’s no one to serve breakfast, the interiors smell like a brewery, the dog has a field day chewing on the strewn cigarette butts, and damn if our son doesn’t want a party on Sunday because our daughter had one on Saturday…