Yesscape 2009!

Story of the making of our fancy new year party

New year party turned out well. I thought I write you this mail at work coz I think it’s a good omen to start the first day of the year at office - by using little of office time for better use.... "Not working" and do this especially to entertain you on your birthday!

Phew.... It wasn't as easy as I thought. Getting people happy-drunk is a tough job, and off course after that it generally is smooth flowing. But until then, there were many points at which I wanted to call it off and sit by myself at home... Good I didn't.

First of the tasks was getting the revelers together - that was easy compared to the challenge ahead - I just had to tell everyone what I had named the party (Yesscape 2009), then the venue... that story you know now, then the other challenges of getting the right booze, snacks, food etc. (The key was I agree to pick everything pointed at).

But the challenge was getting these gals to agree on seemingly small things like a cake... Can you believe it, a cake to cut at 12 midnight when you are drunk can make you do the bizaar-est things. Just to make sure you don't get my love for chocolate cake any wrong... I am a big eater (you know it, and it shows) and cakes rank the top of my few favourite sweets. But WHO almost squabbles half a day for chocolate cakes???!!!! Especially when we have half a day to the party… And you are at work doing ten other things at a time?!

One of the lead attendees wanted "frosted-chocolate-cake-with- nuts (fccwn)" (Ref for the wish: Episode from Friends, Scene: When RACHEL brings in this cake for a party.

I, as usual don't remember the scene... Now try explaining that to the Shivajinagar guy in Sweet Chariot), so she called all the big cake shops (read: Taj Cake Shop to Sweet Chariot) and explained her craving. Alas! The ones who got it didn't make it on a short notice of 6-8 hours, others who didn't make it – couldn’t spell it. The following events were side-splitting, as I recount the flow of events now. At that point – I was speechless!

So finally we designated one of the to-be-revelers (whose birthday happened to be on the same day 31st) to pick up a yummy chocolate cake and she suggested a friend of her mother's who makes great cakes at home as a business. The baker-lady agreed even on the short notice, to make us a Ferrero Rocher Chocolate cake... But now our pal who wanted "F.C.C.W.N" believes that anything without brand, with a discounted price, or on offer, is either low quality or worse – FAKE or DUPLICATE!!!!!

To recollect another incident when we each bought the Olympus camera at a leading and renowned Camera and Photography studio: We had 2 last hours to spare before we left the next morning for my bestest holiday till date and we didn't have a camera each, so we got to the city's best store where we get all the best brands under one roof. Our FCCWN pal only zeroed-in on the camera because of the magical looking "smile to shoot" mode... No other features mattered, which she has not bothered to use again, it's been a year!!!

I have to describe the scene here:
My FCCWN friend stands at the counter sipping her Corner House thick-chocolate-malt in one hand and balancing some shopping bags in the other. As I was negotiating the price, discounts, offers and add-on gadgets, and just when the store manager was considering agreeing to the deal I wanted... Our girl stood like an eager 8-year-old kid whose mom (played by me) was trying to cheat her with a counterfeit-made-in-china 'Burby dall' to add to her 35th latest edition Barbie Doll collection) announced,

"Why are you asking and why is he giving so much discount… Swapna STOP!!! You think it's original???!!!! Think again, let's go to another store…"

And then and there, the renowned Camera and Photographs studio's store manager who already believed that women are technically-challenged coz they have no testosterone, withdrew the deal-in-the-making and said, "That's why madaam we don't like giving discounts, you don't get to know the vaalue of the product!!!" (Wanted to applaud his quick wit and at the same time wanted to slap the bugger for the cheesy dialogue.)

And then my dearest FCCWN proudly said, "Ok, now let's buy it!!"

By this point - If I wasn't as brown already, my face was flushed and my face had turned into the dark chocolate brown malt colour that she was still sipping on. I took in a long breath and we landed up purchasing our twin cameras at full M.R.P.

So, getting back the great chocolate party. Here again our pal got all worked up. She exclaimed, "Good lord! How can some aunty make Ferrero Rocher chocolate cake?
No... Swapna, let's just go to Sweet Chariot, and get the usual Rich Chocolate..."

Phew, can you imagine how much of pursuing got her to finally agree – lot of coxing and standing up for single woman - small scale entrepreneurs, my dear but still hesitant FCCWN finally agreed very uncertainly to pick up the FCC but telling us that it has got to be rich-chocolate-and-extra-ferrero-flavored. Now, how can a rich-chocolate-cake also taste like be rich-ferreo-cake. The good lord might not be able to answer but never the less, that was the demand!

The demand was communicated with the same enthusiasm to the baker... By which time the baker lady knew that for a demand of such magnitude, the demander had never stepped in a kitchen to boil eggs! (But the truth is FCCWN makes the best and most refreshing tea, and really the most refreshing tea. I guess that’s the only thing she can cook – at least it’s the only thing she’s served me.)

So that was the story of us ordering the cake, then there was getting them to agree on what they want to eat for dinner, and where.

The previous evening, FCCWN and I went shopping for drinks and short-eats. We bought a lot of stuff. I did go a little over-board picking up lots of juices, garnishes and snacks. I had browsed through the web for cocktail recipes, and wanted all the ingredients right and I expected that my girls had good capacity. So, the bill was a whooping sum. I did hide it from the rest, coz I knew the two other soft-spoken and hence less-spoken of girls in the party list will think of me as irresponsible…

So, the cake was ordered, drinks picked up, snacks and garnishes were in place. We had to all make it on time at the dinner venue, and that really was the last challenge here.

There was the birthday girl reveler who came dressed for a disco dress, while we were all in casuals. FCCWN who had assured her to accompany her in a dress, back tracked. So, birthday girl felt completely out of place to be the only one jazzed up. And the mean girls that we can be, we made her feel completely out-of-place. She knew it was all in jest, but we did bugged her no end.

Once at the restaurant, we started to order. There was some tension between birthday girl and the rest of us. Birthday girl went on and ordered what she wanted, and what she assumed everyone should eat, while we wanted to try out something new. Birthday girl happened to be the only one well rested that day, the other attendees were coming straight from work. So, explains the irritability sensed on the table. The ones who had worked resorted to order a round of drinks to calm our nerves. It worked. The food arrived, we started to gauge on them. And everyone was happy and gay. That's where the challenge seized and the party began...

The food was delicious, so was the one-by-five chocolate desert – we order. Yes, we had chocolate desert at dinner, and we had one kilo of FCC awaiting us back the venue.

While we walked back to the car from the restaurant – to be back home before the crazy street revelers took over the streets in the heart of Bangalore, two rouges on the street called out to three of us – “Hellooo… Charles Angles!!” No no… There is no typo there. The poor guys didn’t differentiate between angels and angles. It was hilarious and had us all in splits.

It has to be mentioned here that this was the first time our gang of girls were meeting each other. They are all my dear friends for years and we were together for a spectacular night to be. I was so happy it was finally happening.

Now about the party...

I experimented my newly-acquired skills of making cocktails on these friends - each of whom I love for their antics and I suppose they love me for mine. Then as the count-down began, we bottoms-up'd the tequila and cut the cake, after three or four drinks each, I didn't think rich chocolate or ferrero mattered... and we attacked on the snacks, and drank more.

We watched TWO movies - Burn After Reading, it's a very conversational movie and with a chatty gang of girls that we were, it was hard to get the dialogues. All we wanted was to gape at Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

SPOILER ALERT: When one of the two gets killed first in a quick shot - which I now think was a brilliant scene - all one of us then had to say was - "Why did he have to die. He didn't strip yet!"

And when the movie was over, the combined review of our drunk women stands -
"But there was no good scenes (read: love making, stripping) wonly... What kinda movie is this? It wasted two good looking men on us!"

We watched Slumdog Millionnaire while two of the girls drowsed, the other 3 enjoyed the movie with the really HOT drink called "Chilli Vodka" served to us by the birthday girl. At the intermission, I served the hit drink of the night (Thanks to me, the bar-tender of the night and in return thanks to the Tuleeho session) – the drink of the night was "Crunchy Cranberry and litchi margarita."

By now, it was dawn. We waited to catch the sun rise to a new day, a new year and we nocturnal beings called it a night!

It was a great night, a great beginning to a new year!! Loved all the bits of it including the making of this great and most memorable night!

STATUTORY WARNING: All characters in the narration are hardly fictitious; they are as real as a bottle of tequila - before you EVEN sniff it! And names are hidden/changed to keep them from kicking my big arse. The characters are kept intact as they are all very important to keep me sane and on ground through the years to come and that they are my greatest friends.

I must make it clear that I only seem to be making fun of them but believe that each of them is a star for different reasons, and I love them dearly, I might not want this sent to them only because they are my girl friends and we have our temperaments. Nobody can guess which swing of moods they will be when any of them gets to read it! ;-)

So watch it before you say anything!

Written on: Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 5:29 PM. A letter to a friend who didn't make it to our party, also as her birthday gift.