I have a complex now, please invite me

It so happened that yesterday I worked till 2:30 in the night and eventually when Alka and I settled down to have dinner I started surfing the channels to check whether we could watch something trashy (we have recently started watching Desperate Housewives, and Cheaters you see, gradually graduating from the Disney Channel stuff) while eating. We generally watch news but every news channel was showing that kidney king’s arrest and as usual, was overdoing it.

I found a channel that was showing some men’s program where they were talking about how to party, how to go to parties and how to organize parties. There was this the-king-of-cool-type guy who is very much “into the party scene” and he was enlightening the viewers with all his gayish gaiety about how to be a perfect host and a perfect guest.

Every aspect of the party should be rocking: music should be rocking, drinks should be rocking, food should be rocking, the place should be rocking, the neighborhood should be rocking, the hosts should be rocking and their pets should be rocking, and the guests should be rocking and if even one of these is not rocking it is very very shocking.

And what happens if one of these archetypal aspects are not rocking? Although it may leave the hosts with a lifelong trauma requiring long-term therapy to come to terms with the eventuality, he has no choice but to LEAVE the party. Just imagine how crushing it must be for the hosts, but so are the lives and ways of those who take the art of partying to unassailable heights.

He said that you should follow the dress code strictly — yes, many party invitations mention the dress code — and it is okay to be thrown out of a party if you don’t follow the dress code. Never arrive overdressed (something like wearing an overcoat, felt hat, dark big goggles, leather gloves and gumshoes) and never arrive underdressed (something like wearing just a thong or an underwear, or just a condom). But then he quickly added that no rules should be followed when you go to a party (this implies, we innocently used our meager, non-existent knowledge of the great partydom and hypothesized ourselves, that sometimes you can overdress and underdress). In between the interviewer advertised about a few music players (most of them cost more than Rs. 1,20,000) that can really make your party rocking.

He told the audience that it is not at all OK to be not to be invited to parties. One must be an active member of the city’s party circle, square, triangle, tetrahedron, and all sorts of geometric representations.  If it is not so, you are not happening, you practically don’t have a life, you better not think you exist and outrage the decent party-goers. Man, if you want to be a party person you must idealize this gentleman. Right now I cannot remember his name but it was something like Nandani or Chandani. He is quite well-known in Delhi’s party circuits.

Anyway, as with wide eyes and gaping mouths (although we were eating, in between we did manage that awestruck look without spilling out the chewed contents of our mouths) we were absorbing these ambrosia-like rare pearls of wisdom, he delivered the cul-de-sac judgement, and that was, if you party you go there (he pointed upwards, like a prophet) and if you don’t party you remain there (he pointed downwards, with great, well-meant disdain). I don’t know about Alka but by the time we got over with the program, and our food, I had been left totally crushed. I had a complex that I had never had.

All my life, if I can remember I must have gone to 4 parties and 3 of them were the lowly mohalla parties. By the party standards I have remained there (pointing downwards). The realization has hit me with an amplified clarity after watching that life-altering program, and no wonder I’m struggling all the time. All these years I have been toiling like an animal to achieve my goals and all I had to do was somehow wriggle my way into the cities party circles (or squares, triangles, etc.). Not that it is an easier fete; you have to be really privileged to join the elite class of partygoers, but still had it been revealed to me earlier I could have at least tried. All these years! dammit.

So hey party gods of NOIDA and Delhi (both cities will do)! Invite me to one of your glorious gatherings you call parties. Let me sip the heavenly cocktails and unleash my dormant spirits of greatness. Grace my booty by letting me shake it in your esteemed company and let me invoke deities of success. I’m waiting with expectant eyes and bated breath to be declared as a guy who has finally arrived (or crashed-in, whatever you deem fit to call).