“Get-Together Preparations “
People who conduct parties or some sort of get-together regularly wouldn’t be facing preparation problems. But what about those who keep it once in a while (when I say while, it means gap of maybe even more than 10 years :D) ?
Such a situation rose a few days ago in my house. Though still the planning and preparations is yet to be finalized but I would just like to tell this particular incident.
The get-together has to be organized on request of a family friend (Mr. N) who is visiting Bhilai along with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. His daughter and son-in-law are coming to Bhilai first time, after their wedding two years back. So Mr. N wants a small get-together with few families (still staying in Bhilai) whom his family knows.
This get-together has to be arranged by my appa and Mr. S. So, Mr. and Mrs. S had come home to discuss about the preparation with my appa, amma. I and my brother were also present during this discussion. The discussion starts –
The first point was to list the families who all were coming and number of members from each family (to get an estimate count of people for get-together). Among the 15 odd families, only two families were north Indian families and the rest tamilians only. So we first thought of asking Mr. N to not include those two families in the list as they will feel odd being among us. But then we remembered that SIL of Mr. N is also a north Indian and he might also feel odd if he’s only among us tamilians (err..he’s the chief guest of this get-together na!! :D). So finally the total number was decided after including those two families also.
The second point was to choose the place, whether to keep the get-together at our house itself or to book a hall outside. We didn’t want to this to look as a formal meeting but then to keep this within house would be slightly difficult. But after lots of discussions it was concluded that it’ll be in our house only.
The third and most important point is the menu to be served for dinner. The option to cook at house itself for all was ruled out unanimously, so we decided to order food. Now the question was to whom to order? This is purely based on the type of menu we wanted and also the type of people who were coming – north Indian (like puri, chapatti and sabji) or south Indian (like mixed rice and side dish) or south Indian Tiffin (like dli/dosai and sambar/chutney). Now none of us as such wanted Tiffin as it’s something very common we eat. Most of the people who will come are old so the menu should suit them. We decided to go for mixed rice (lemon rice, coconut rice etc along with some side dishes). Now we had to decide about the catering people. As there were two/three people/groups whom we knew will cater us? There was a debate on whom to choose with Mr. S saying he has tasted one of the caterers “aviyal” and it was good and Mrs. S saying that their another dish wasn’t good. My appa said that some other person’s dishes were not that good and trying to think where he had tasted it and my amma not agreeing to him. Overall the whole discussion was being enjoyed by me and my brother, both of us silently saying that we’ll go outside somewhere else with “chief guest and his wife” to eat and leave the “Hosts” (my parents and Mr. S) to be with other guests.
Suddenly my amma got up to look at the calendar to see which day 1st august is falling on, when she discovered that 1st was “aadi amavasya”.
This meant that no saadam on that day and only palaharam. So menu had to be again changed and now it has been finalized to idly, sambar, chutney and a sweet dish.
This whole discussion went for more than three hours and all of us got tired with it, so we decided to choose the caterers later. The decision is yet to be finalized and today only amma said that their might be some other change in the menu and all.
Well I don’t when the final decision will be taken and how the get-together goes on, but this incident made me wonder how the regular party-holders do their planning and preparations with so many criteria’s and conditions.
Such a situation rose a few days ago in my house. Though still the planning and preparations is yet to be finalized but I would just like to tell this particular incident.
The get-together has to be organized on request of a family friend (Mr. N) who is visiting Bhilai along with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. His daughter and son-in-law are coming to Bhilai first time, after their wedding two years back. So Mr. N wants a small get-together with few families (still staying in Bhilai) whom his family knows.
This get-together has to be arranged by my appa and Mr. S. So, Mr. and Mrs. S had come home to discuss about the preparation with my appa, amma. I and my brother were also present during this discussion. The discussion starts –
The first point was to list the families who all were coming and number of members from each family (to get an estimate count of people for get-together). Among the 15 odd families, only two families were north Indian families and the rest tamilians only. So we first thought of asking Mr. N to not include those two families in the list as they will feel odd being among us. But then we remembered that SIL of Mr. N is also a north Indian and he might also feel odd if he’s only among us tamilians (err..he’s the chief guest of this get-together na!! :D). So finally the total number was decided after including those two families also.
The second point was to choose the place, whether to keep the get-together at our house itself or to book a hall outside. We didn’t want to this to look as a formal meeting but then to keep this within house would be slightly difficult. But after lots of discussions it was concluded that it’ll be in our house only.
The third and most important point is the menu to be served for dinner. The option to cook at house itself for all was ruled out unanimously, so we decided to order food. Now the question was to whom to order? This is purely based on the type of menu we wanted and also the type of people who were coming – north Indian (like puri, chapatti and sabji) or south Indian (like mixed rice and side dish) or south Indian Tiffin (like dli/dosai and sambar/chutney). Now none of us as such wanted Tiffin as it’s something very common we eat. Most of the people who will come are old so the menu should suit them. We decided to go for mixed rice (lemon rice, coconut rice etc along with some side dishes). Now we had to decide about the catering people. As there were two/three people/groups whom we knew will cater us? There was a debate on whom to choose with Mr. S saying he has tasted one of the caterers “aviyal” and it was good and Mrs. S saying that their another dish wasn’t good. My appa said that some other person’s dishes were not that good and trying to think where he had tasted it and my amma not agreeing to him. Overall the whole discussion was being enjoyed by me and my brother, both of us silently saying that we’ll go outside somewhere else with “chief guest and his wife” to eat and leave the “Hosts” (my parents and Mr. S) to be with other guests.
Suddenly my amma got up to look at the calendar to see which day 1st august is falling on, when she discovered that 1st was “aadi amavasya”.
This meant that no saadam on that day and only palaharam. So menu had to be again changed and now it has been finalized to idly, sambar, chutney and a sweet dish.
This whole discussion went for more than three hours and all of us got tired with it, so we decided to choose the caterers later. The decision is yet to be finalized and today only amma said that their might be some other change in the menu and all.
Well I don’t when the final decision will be taken and how the get-together goes on, but this incident made me wonder how the regular party-holders do their planning and preparations with so many criteria’s and conditions.
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