In General

The Vodka Cocktail do (hic!)

It was great fun. Got to meet interesting folks who I’ve been hearing about. Tried my hands at some exotic concoctions. I loved doing the organising bit. That alone deserves a longer write up. Here are some snaps for starters.


Shopping at Koyambedu market was such fun. The prices were phenomenally low. Yet, you should’ve seen us bargaining!! Koyambedu has Asia’s largest fruits and vegetables market and I’m glad we live just a couple of kilometerse away. We stocked up on a lot of fruits for cocktail.


Vodka, Vodka & nothing but vodka. We had quite a line up from Smirnoff – Lime twist, Vanilla twist,Triple Distilled. Chenthil added up with the good ‘ol regular Smirnoff as well. The king amongsts ’em all was the extra special Stolichnaya brought in by Frank.


The bar in progress. Ravi fixing a drink.


Guests helping themselves to the drinks. I guess that’s the best part. It was great to see guests coming in and readily helping out.


Me fixing a Blue Lagoon


The snacks table containing eats got in from the guests. A true BYOS gangup.


Smita, Archana, OJ, Prince, Bobby at dusk


OJ was at his witty best keeping everone in great humour. He taught me some fantastic concoctions. The best was Cherry and Vanilla twist straight. Soooper. Frank and Melissa are from the US consulate and they got in some wonderful samosas. We gorged on them late into the night, especially my neighbours, who took a real fond liking.


Many kept asking what was the reason for the party. Was it the new job? Was it winning the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Indibloggies? Was it Blogstreet rating me at India’s #1 Blogger, was it us expecting our second kid? Actually, it’s none of these. Infact, I’d like to call it the ‘No Reasons’ party. Hmmm… maybe there is a faint reason there afterall. One of the things that I realised was that I had friends in different pockets. Bloggers, Marthoners, tech writers, business friends, Web developers, social workers… and I realised that most didn’t really know each other. So I figured doing a do would be a good idea to get the gangs togeher.


Bharath, Uma and Harshita. Harshita instantly became my daughter’s best friend.


The gang taking a swig of a strong shot of Stolinchaya. Mamamia! This truly is a great drink. Guys, if you are into vodka, hunt down this beauty and savour her. Take my word for it.


As the party progressed, things got a little hazy!!


Melissa with Smita and Archana


That’s Bobby chatting up with my wife. Bobby Menon is one guy who had my eyebrows raised. It was just few weeks back that I met up with him at the book launch party of his wife. And now, I see only half of him. He lost a whopping 27 kgs and is looking at his fittest that I’ve ever seen him. Bobby and Jo have known both me and Sujani much before we got married.

Sujani is on right, all of five months preg. She was running a 100+ fever, yet she made sure she came up to meet the folks. Her fever worsened up over the night. She’s feeling better as of morning.


Jyothi Menon, chatting up with Bharath, Uma and Frank. Jyo is Bobby’s wife and they are the best HR couple I’ve known. Bobby heads HR in a multinational company and Jyo heads HR in Lason, India’s oldest BPO company. Jyo has authored two books and she recently was awarded the super achiever award by a management institute.


It was great to see Kumar and his bubbly family come over. His kids really brightened up my place and Krithya had loads of fun with the gang.


My mom giving company to Bala and Thamizh at dinner. We had vegetable fried rice, Cauliflower Manchurian, Potato Peas kuruma. For snacks, we had cheese-pineapple-cherry combo, chicken 65 and Chilly chicken.


Keerthi, Krishna and Krithya doing rhymes.


Krithya getting jiggy with it to some songs from the kids. Just looking at the joy in the faces of kids was worth all the effort.