This is what my daughter said she’d do for her birthday: Invite the guests. This is what my son said he’d do for his sister’s birthday: Bring friends. This is what my wife said she’d do for our daughter’s birthday: Nothing. This is what I had to do for my daughter’s birthday: Organise the DJ, speak to a bartender, think up a menu and then order the food.
Before that, of course, we needed a place. My daughter said she didn’t want a party at home (the neighbours would crib about the music). My son said so many teenagers wouldn’t all be allowed into a pub together (the legal drinking age in Delhi is still 21).
My wife said she couldn’t figure out why someone so old would want a party anyway (though she still enjoys hers). So I had to call up contacts and check out multiple spaces before rejecting them all in favour of borrowing my brother’s home for a night.
Having chosen it by a vote of four, who would bell the cat? My daughter said she couldn’t ask her relatives for the loan of their house because it would embarrass her. My son said he didn’t see why he should do someone else’s dirty work. My wife said it was an in-law issue, so it was not her call anyway. So I spoke to my sister-in-law to say my daughter wanted very much to celebrate her birthday in their house, and if it was all right — of course, said my sister-in-law — then I’d get my daughter to talk to her about it.
My daughter called her to say thank you, but did not explain what she had planned. My son called my brother to say they were making a mistake in letting his sister and her friends into their house, but not why. My wife and my sister-in-law gossiped, as they usually do, in which mention of the party did not come up. It was left to me to ring up my brother to tell him that they would have to remove all their furniture because my daughter wanted a dance floor. That they should warn their neighbours because a DJ implied loud music (the neighbours would call the cops for sure, my brother sighed). And that they should keep buckets in the bathroom (the girls are sure to barf, my son had warned).
Meanwhile, there was still the cake to be ordered, the glasses and crockery and cutlery to be organised, the cocktail mixes to be picked up, the party snacks and eats to collect, the ice to be carried, the tentwallahs to be bought in, the beer chilled. “I don’t have time for all that,” said my daughter, who’d earlier said she’d manage everything, “I still have my party dress to select.” The dress also meant shoes, a bag, and several visits to the beauty parlour, all of them more important than the party that “any idiot can handle”, my daughter said.
My sister-in-law begged off being physically present, saying she had a conference to attend through the day, and dinner out at night. My brother said we were free to re-organise anything as long as we left the house the way we’d found it. My wife said just because she worked from home didn’t mean she was any less busy, besides what was she expected to do at her brother-in-law’s house when even her sister-in-law was not present? My son argued that he was in town to enjoy the party, not slave for it.
So I too put my foot down and accepted a friend’s invitation to dinner. It’s another matter that my daughter said she didn’t want her parents around anyway, that she’d manage her own party, thank you very much.
