Sunday, December 30, 2001		Article

THE last Sunday of the year. It’s the time to look back at the weeks and months gone by, to remember happenings happy and sad. To relive events interesting and absurd. And what better way to do that than to plan a bash at your home where you can recapture vignettes of the outgoing year. The fun of it actually lies in doing it at short notice!

Even as most people prepare to go party hopping on New Year’s Eve, with not much variety in music, cuisine or drinks to distinguish one get-together from the other, here’s your chance to treat your family and friends to an exclusive blast. Junk all those hackneyed party ideas, don your thinking (rather memory) cap, and recall some events or celebrities who made a mark this year and plan a theme party around them.

Here are a few recipes and flavours to cook up a real funky and wacky bash whose taste will linger long after the music has died down….And despair not. These theme parties don’t need weeks and months of preparation. If you are the resourceful sort, a day should be enough. After all, that’s where the challenge lies.

Remember all those box office filmi hits of the year? The memorable Bollywood faces of 2001? Take your cue from them and throw a Filmfare Awards-type extravaganza at your home. Ask your guests to come dressed up as one of the cine stars who grabbed the headlines in the year gone by, be it as Aamir Khan in Lagaan, Kareina in Asoka, as Rekha in Lajja, or as the new face of the year Fardeen Khan…the choice is vast.

No need for any fancy props. Take clippings of the films released in 2001 from glossies, paste them to make a few mega-sized collages and hang them all over the room. Simply vacate a corner of your drawing room to serve as the stage, assemble your guests in front of it, dim the lights, have a torch ready to throw the spotlight on the winners of the evening as they walk up for their ‘awards’ and let the show begin…

And the ‘awards’ to be presented are best left to your imagination—-for ‘best resemblance to a film star’, for ‘best histrionic ability’, for ‘best costume imitation’….and last but not the least, for ‘least resemblance to the intended star’ !

This having been the year of blasts—-from the ones on the WTC towers in New York to nearer to home Parliament—it is but apt that you remember the key political players of 2001 over dinner and drinks. And no prizes for guessing who all will be coming to this fancy dress party. This should be an event with a global flavour. So, cut out replicas of the national flags of the much-in-the-news nations and pin them at strategic places. Put up streamers in colour combinations to match with these flags. And the nearest you can come to reproducing the effect of blasts (in a lighter vein, of course) is to burst balloons or crackers as the political stars of the evening walk in—-George W. Bush, our very own Atal Behari Vajpayee and his arch rival General Pervez Musharraf (both of the failed Agra Summit fame), Maulana Masood Azhar, leader of the terrorist organisation Jaish –e- Mohammed. And if you have a chief guest, ask him to come dressed as, who else but the ‘master terrorist ’ Osama bin Laden? And if you have guest who can speak on political lines why not have him speak like our Prime Minister? To complete the effect, the musical score for this power-laden congregation should be the title song of the film Tum Bin!

Sporty encounters

If you and your friends are more of the sports-loving kind, host a couple party for them where they will be required to come dressed as the eye-catching sports couples of the years. However, make exceptions for some notable singles. Never mind whether the sporting pair has been clean-bowled or their romance has ended with one of the partners bowling a googly (cricketing terminology for bowling the wrong one). Taking a cue from the real-life celebrities, your invitees will have to appear much in love, the hot-shot ongoing Leander Paes-Mahima Chaudhary affair or they could wear the jilted look like the just-ended Nagma-Saurav Ganguly pair. Your single friends needn’t bemoan the lack of partners. They can open their innings dressed as the newcomer of the year Virender Sehwag, who made promising cricketing debut and later his suspension created one of the biggest controversy in cricket since Kerry Packer divided the game 25 years ago in Australia. The idea is to have fun and what better way to do it than with a display of sportsman spirit!