Spare me from these parties

THERE are certain groups of people in Mumbai who seem to be attending parties 365 days a year. When they are not attending parties, they are hosting them. These men and woman are called party animals. Want to know more about them? Read the pages of the Mumbai Times.

Thank God, I have never been a party animal. In fact, it is very seldom that I get invited to parties and I thank God for that. The main fault of these parties is that a small group of people set the rules which they expect others to follow. Let me illustrate.

The other day, my wife and I attended a party hosted by a couple who had completed 10 years of married life. After surviving several traffic jams in a bouncy autorickshaw we reached the venue of the party, a suburban club. Since we were not confirmed party goers, we found we had committed the cardinal sin of arriving too early. Punctuality is all right for official work, but clearly a no no for parties. This one was supposed to start at 8 p.m., but no one except the caterers and a dozen bored waiters were present when we reached the venue around 8.45 p.m.

For around 30 minutes we walked around the club premises, admiring the well maintained lawns and huge parking lot, a rarity in Mumbai. "If only I had a car, I could have parked it comfortably," I cheerfully told my wife who made a face at me. We re-entered the party around 9.30 p.m. and found people trickling in. This was a gathering where I knew only the host, that too rather vaguely. He was an interesting personality and I had interviewed him for a magazine article. Who the other guests were, we had no idea.

The host and his wife greeted us warmly and introduced us to several other guests. They were interesting people. Very soon, I was talking animatedly to a senior bureaucrat of the State government, a top ranking TV executive, the

Features Editor of a popular Gujarati magazine and a man who dabbled in electronic equipment. My wife had also made friends with three or four people. Waiters went around serving a variety of juices, colas and starters.

Hey, this was much better than what I had expected. I felt many of the people I talked to were worth writing about. This was one party I was really going to enjoy, I told myself. But then all good things must come to an end. The slide began with the arrival of a suited and booted DJ (Disc Jockey) who heralded his arrival by activating the music system which began to blare out.

The DJ obviously did not like the guests deriving pleasure doing their own thing like chatting with each other. He wanted to "pep" up the party where most guests were 40 plus. "Come on, come on, folks, it's time to have some fun," he began and the volume of the music went up several decibels. "No, no, this will not do," he continued. "You must have fun, you must come together. So, let's have a ball." I looked at the faces of the guests and most of them, I am sure, had the feeling that they would rather have their own versions of fun.

But the DJ and his friends were paid for creating "fun" for the guests. He screamed that we were going to play games. The women were called out to move one step forward and form a circle. Then the men followed. The women were asked to move in the clockwise direction, the men in the anti-clockwise direction. The music continued and when it stopped, the men and women who were face to face had to introduce themselves to each other. "I am a writer and a journalist. I live in Bandra, my telephone number is xxxxxxx," I informed a well dressed woman who looked through me and muttered, "corporate communications, Andheri. She was not the least bit interested in knowing who I was and what I was doing. The game went on till the DJ was convinced that all the men and all the women now knew each other!

In the next game, more circles were formed, that went round and round. The DJ eliminated people by announcing, "Those with glasses step out; those wearing black shoes, step out; those with metal watch straps, step out..." and so on. The person who survived all this and stayed on till the end was the winner.

There were more games. We had to act like five-year-olds or juvenile delinquents or those with negligible IQs. There was no escape. Guests who went and hid in the corners of the big hall were spotted by the DJ's group members and brought back to the centre for the games. Some of them looked as though they wished the earth would open and swallow them up. I found an easy way to slip out. After going round and round in circles once or twice, I quietly managed to make an exit and sit down in a corner. My wife saw me do this and shook her index finger at me. She continued because she was runner-up in one of the games and hoped to win prizes before the night was out. Alas, luck did not favour her.

Once the games were over, the dancing began. The music became louder and I felt as though someone was bashing me on the head. Small groups of people gyrated listlessly on the floor, while the others stayed back. The DJ and his men went around urging everyone to dance. But most of the guests would have been happier being left alone and chatting with their new found friends. The earlier camaraderie of the party was lost. As the music shook the hall, I want out and walked around the club. By 11 p.m., there were no signs of the music and dancing getting over. My wife signalled that she too, wanted to leave. We left without having dinner, came home and had some curd rice and lime pickle. The food was divine. So was the silence.

Why do party hosts believe that they alone knew how to entertain their guests? I would not mind attending an occasional party where I can sit and chat with like-minded people on books, cricket, current affairs, TV programmes and so on. Or take part in quiz shows. But I have had enough of parties where the guests are made to act like five-year-old children and join in "games" which are frankly, idiotic. Added to this was the loud music which prevented one from even talking to someone who was seated just half-a-metre away. At the party I mentioned, I sat close to a woman writer with whom I wanted to exchange notes. But I could not do so for more than an hour because of the screeching music. Perhaps I should seek advice from a "party animal" on how to survive these parties and return home sane.

V. GANGADHAR

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