Happy New Year :D

Wishing all my readers a Happy New Year. Most people wonder, what's the big deal? Just another year gone by, what's with all the excessive spending and binge drinking? Ever since I've come to Pune, I have bullied, begged and practically kidnapped my friends to come over to my place for a gathering. The basics are always there with few decorations, lots of food and awesome music. They always agreed at the end of it that they had a great time, but I guess they never really understood why it was such a big deal for me. The secret shall finally be revealed today. Well, not so much of a secret as nostalgia..

When I was staying in Dubai, our nuclear family (me, mom, dad & bro) were friends with around 8 other nuclear Maharastran families. Everyone's parents used to be "Kaka" , "Maushi" and I think the kids were the closest we had to partial siblings (something like cousins...) New Year's used to be a big deal in those days. The party preparations would start a week in advance. The venue would rotate from one family to another in round-robin fashion. (Bloody engineering will be stuck with me forever). Food used to be either one-dish prepared by each Maushi & Mom or ordered from outside. I will not go into drinks as we were kids then and had no idea whatsoever of the same :P

The best part used to be that every family had to come up with minumum 1 game. Any party game that could be played by a huge group of people. Also, they had to get gifts for the winner. 2 weeks before New Year's our family would be planning which game we would host this time. What gift should we give? Nothing too cheap and nothing too expensive. :D Photo frames, fancy clocks, stationary items were the most common gifts. The most famous games were moonwalk (empty bottles kept in a line and the blindfolded player has to walk around them without dropping any), 3 legged race, balloon bursting competitions.. The best part was that these weren't meant only for children. To tell you the truth, our parents always had a go before kids were allowed to start participating! Of course they would claim that they were just checking the difficulty level suitable for kids but I'm sure that's not the entire truth :D

So on the fateful day, the party would begin. We would all gather at a family friend's place. Great music would be on, coke and chips in hand, we kids would start playing our chingu-pingu games like hide n seek or medicine-poison. Finally, it would be game time! The excitement, the cheering, the urge to win, it was all too much! After all the games were played, we would dance a bit and head towards dinner. Those were the days.. I really miss those New Year Parties.. Anyway, things change, so here's hoping for new parties with new friends! Happy New Year People :D