<b>Kishore Singh:</b> When the real hosts are absent

My wife was wont to worry about what she considered our son's secret life. He worked long hours, his couple of buddies hung around home like the furniture and required regular replenishment, he went out infrequently: "Doesn't he have any other friends," she asked, troubled by his lack of social ambition. So, it was with relief that she learned that he was asking people from work and his circle of acquaintances home for dinner. When he said he'd order takeaway, my wife insisted she'd cook him a meal he'd be proud of.

She worked on menus that he rejected offhandedly. "Ma," he protested, "this is the kind of food parents eat." I don't think he meant it unkindly, but when he suggested the cooks at home could handle the matter of the dinner, she turned her full wrath on him and said, "I will show you I make the best food in the city" -which was an improvement on what she usually told me, which was: "I make the best food in the whole family." Now that the challenge had increased, she set about the task at hand with academic zeal till, finally, they settled on courses for a well-travelled, well-heeled, younger generation of achievers, and she set about procuring the ingredients, phoning up "contacts" to get the stuff she required to prove she was better than his friends' moms, even though she'd never even met them.

He didn't have the time to acquire the party alcohol, so I was provided with a list (but not his credit card) to take time off from work to purchase quantities of Japanese single malts and Polish vodkas, French wines and Belgian beers, for what appeared enough spirits to serve a north Indian wedding. My driver and I were pressed into service to organise the tentwallah's services, ice, mixers and the assistance of my regular bartender who was happy to come because I'm a walkover for his entreaties for "a bottle for my father", and a bill that has no basis in reality.

Our son asked his sister to invite her friends over too, and then asked her to do the flowers, oversee the presentation of the food and interiors. He wanted the staff to wear a uniform, but that idea, thankfully, was nixed by the old cook, who declared she wasn't getting out of her saree and into a skirt and we could have her resignation if we wanted it. (In a toss-up between our son and the cook, he knew what rung he occupied, so he backed off hastily.)

"Mom-Dad," our son said to us over the breakfast table, "you might want to leave after saying hello to my friends." Since we had no other plans, we said we'd shut ourselves up in the bedroom, but he said it would be better if we went off for a film, or for dinner to some restaurant, since some of his friends - "silly chaps" - might have got the notion that he lived by himself, and he didn't want to embarrass them.

So, after we'd carried, and fetched, and cooked, and set, and re-set, and fussed, and cleaned, and supervised, and instructed, and paid for the party, my wife and I - and the dog - went for several long walks in the neighbourhood, and sat in the park, and swatted at mosquitoes, and my wife said, "I think I liked it better when I thought he had no friends. But now that he has grown up, I don't think he needs us any more."