Why parties are such hard work
It is another evening in our household. “I’m bored,” says my wife over the phone, “I need to go to some party, any party.” Her tone suggests business. I waive aside any considerations of returning home to snuggle under the covers of the bed with the dog for company and a drink by the bedside. Instead, I dispatch a handful of invitations with the driver so she can choose the one (and hopefully no more) that will offer her an evening’s entertainment. She arrives at the appointed hour with a jacket for me to change into, while I struggle to memorise the host’s name and wonder why, in this city, people invite perfect strangers to their parties.
Traversing the city’s traffic, dining with recently introduced social acquaintances, it is past midnight when we get back to the car, to be informed by the driver that there has been some sort of fracas in his house. He stops a few times on the way back to take calls and update us on the shenanigans. Some relatives of his wife have had a falling out, there has been a public fight, the community got involved, a cop got beaten up, now he’ll have to rush to the police station to sort things out. “I will call you, Sir,” he tells me, when we are home and he is free to leave. He means well, but I would prefer to sleep.
True to his word, he calls me throughout the remaining hours of the night, asking me to speak to the thana in-charge, who — thankfully — does not wish to speak with me, and how I wish my driver didn’t either. By then my son, whose return flight from Mumbai was delayed, also calls on landing at the airport. He doesn’t have the house keys. “Ring the bell,” I assure him, “I’ll let you in,” staying awake till his hour-long drive from the airport. “I have court in the morning,” he requests nicely, “if my alarm doesn’t wake me up, will you?” I tell him it doesn’t matter, I don’t intend to sleep anyway as I have to wake his sister who’s leaving for Kolkata in a couple of hours, and that he should go to bed and make the most of what’s left of the night.
It takes more than a couple of attempts to rouse my daughter in the morning, and to see she’s packed and off in an Uber. By the time I get around to making myself a cup of tea, the driver is back — no, not on duty, but wanting to know how to file a police report against his wife’s relatives. He’s teary- eyed and angry, he was threatened by the cops in front of his neighbours, he wants revenge. I ask my son, barely awake, to help him draft a note. My daughter calls from the airport to say she’s forgotten to carry an identity card with her, could I WhatsApp a photograph of her driving licence, or Aadhaar card? It takes me a while to find either, during which she keeps calling insistently — do I want her to miss her flight? Finally, the document is forwarded to her, the driver leaves with his police report, my son heads off for his bath, the morning staff arrive to resume their chores, and all is blissfully silent.
My wife wakes a little later. “You look tired,” she tells me, “you work too hard. We should go out more often. Let’s party tonight.”