Arrange your own home party

Most hosts and hostesses have a phobia about arranging their own home party, when they could do a better job economically, efficiently and much more effectively than some of the catering or event management companies. These companies only add to the glorious mess of lists and more lists of confused details, which are conveniently somehow overlooked at the last and crucial juncture when the party is just about to begin and the guests have already arrived at the main door.

First things first, note down the date, time, place and occasion you wish to have the party in aid of. Shoot off your invitations to your listed guests at least one or two weeks in advance with a RSVP calling number so that you are certain which one of your guests is coming and which one is not. This helps prevent a lot of wastages.

Chalk out and decide on the drinks and food menu making sure that you take care of their every choice and comfort as much as possible to the very last detail. For starters welcome them with soft and hard drinks - cocktails or mocktails. Provide an assortment of nuts, canapes, barquettes, munchys, tandoori tikkas (vegetarian or non-vegetarian) as per your choice or bar-b-qued items.

Remember to have sufficient glasses, mats, under-liners, waste-bins, ashtrays, cigars/ cigarettes and cloth and paper serviettes of good quality so that we make a good first impression. You could give roses for the ladies and button hole flowers for the gents suit lapels. You can also give mogra bunches for the ladies hair-dos to enhance your position as you weave through the groups of guests always making them feel comfortable and at ease.

Put on the right music, videos, band or DJs to make for a romantic and memorable occasion. Add flowers, decorations and art pieces and nick-nacks to heighten the sophistication and grandeur of your party.

After a few drinks, serve the starters or hot or cold soups to your guests prior to the main meal. Remember to serve all the foods piping hot no matter what.

1. First the clean plates with serviettes,
2. Then the fish dishes
3. The chicken dishes
4. The mutton dishes with assorted salads
5. Lots of vegetarian fare for our vegetarian guests
6. Complements like papadums, pickles, chutneys, raitas

Needless to say, the chaffing or warming dishes should be refilled to the top and the table-tops should be always cleaned and tidy.

If you are serving Chinese food items, the Chinese sauces should be presented. While if you are serving continental or English items do serve rolls, butter, soup-sticks, mustard, ketchups, HP Sauce, Worcestershire sauce and so on.

After the main meals arrange for finger bowls and a copious helping of napkins or steamed napkins so that the guests can proceed to the dessert table, the cheese board, the nuts and dry-fruit trolley and the tea/coffee/cocoa trolley.

At the end, while the guests are about to leave you could pass out some souvenirs with some hot almond or herbal milk or egg-nogs or perhaps a hot cup of consomme Royale to bring the party to a high ending.

Always be there at the main door to say your goodbyes and thank you and wish them all the best and a safe journey home. After the party, make immediate arrangements to clean up the place and account for all the used and unused items.

Check with your earlier budget and write off your losses. Wherever possible you could try recycling any dishes for your next days menu, after properly freezing and preserving the items in order to economise and save where you can.

Happy Partying!!!

Indian Hockey - Saved the Blushes.

It was really sad to see the star players negotiating for peanuts with the hockey officials of Hockey India considering the amount of strength, stamina, inspiration and perspiration which goes into the making of a match played at the electrifying pace the games are played nowadays - on synthetic surfaces.

The players had not even been payed for thier games in 2009 playings, in a proper way. Instead they were being offered Rs. 25,000\- which would be suitable for a school hockey team, which was pointed out by the negotiating players.

However, it was the groundswell of public indignation and instant support to the Hockey Stars, which brought a stop to the bickerings with the stepping in of the President of the I.O.A., Shri. Suresh Kalamadi. He was most instrumental in bringing a happy all round agreement to the proceedings by agreeing to the star players genuine demands. These demands were to be released by a team of former Indian Players consisting of M.P.Ganesh, Ajit Pal Singh, Zafar Iqbal and Dhanraj Pillay.

Dhanraj Pillay played a sheet-anchor role in tieing up the loose ends and bringing the conclave to an amicable resolution favourable to all parties caught up in this avoidable fray. This issue could easily have been handled at the outset by quality decisions, which could have been taken to offset this sordid fracas. The foolhardy decisions made by the ham handed hockey administrators almost jeopardised and strangled the national players aspirations, rendering them ineffective on the level playing fields.

Other countries offer all sorts of bonuses and incentives to boost their country's net sports worth, some go to the extent of even offering them nationality and a passport to achieve this enviable end.

And what of administrators? Why can we not have former players handling the administrative work like they do at the cricket and other sports fields? They will be more committed, dedicated and devoted to the subtle nuances of Indian Hockey, which was well known in international and Olympic circles for beating competitors with over a dozen goals each.

Remember Dhyan Chand our Olympic icon and his exploits on the hockey fields of the sub-continent, Asia and Europe? Or do we need reminders like the current rigmarole to bring us back to Mother Earth and the stark realities that hockey has sadly degenerated into a free for all.

Officials are ready to make money at any depraved and disgusting level just so that they are up ahead in the lucre making rat race, the country be damned. Such people deserve to be tried for treason but no worry, they are protected by others of their ilk who encourage and back them; so they are safe.

So, I request hockey lovers to unite and get organised and make a noise on the Internet, twitter, facebook, the blogosphere etc. that Indian Hockey is being subjugated and mutilated. If it is going to be the end of our beloved national game of Hockey, we might as well revive our 'gulli danda' traditions or maybe 'kho-kho'. With these ominous signs on the hockey horizons, if we still sit on our butts and wait for glorious things to happen to Indian Hockey we are sadly mistaken and are quite merely barking up the wrong hockey alley.

So, for want of a stronger word, I plead with fellow bloggerites to please come out of your protective shells to roar, cheer-on and offer public econium to Indian Hockey so that our future generation and the hockey players who are yet to play may inherit the joy of being a citizen of the greatest hockey playing nation in world history. We owe that much to our country or don't we anymore?

I am sure you will not fail Indian hockey so please stand up and drum up the support.

Happy Drummings Bloggerites United!!

Payment and Incentives to Indian Hockey Team

We were watching attentively on CNN.IBN the most shameful treatment of our beloved 22 players of our Indian Hockey team in the presence of a battery of media, hockey federation officials and other rif-raf at the press conference for payment of unpaid salaries and incentives. They were trying to negotiate a flimsy deal with the players to get their own debating skills recognized, but not the interests of our lovable Indian Hockey Team which has done yeomans service at the Azlan Shah Tournament, the games in Canada and South America.


It broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes to see these wonderful Indian hockey players who win laurels for our great country being shabbily treated and well nigh humiliated at the press conference on unpaid salaries and promised incentives, being attacked by a pack of rabid dogs who don't know one end of a hockey stick from the other.

Let's not fool ourselves by thinking that hockey is an easy, soft-soft game where there are no risks involved and the players are never injured; no Siree it is as fast, furious and injury prone due to the speed and stamina required to sustain the game on that vicious surface - the astro-turf, which favours the European brand of hockey. This makes it almost as fast a game as Ice Hockey but without the padded gear worn by ice hockey players. Resultantly, most hockey matches turn out like the battles of yore where gladiators compete and fight their rivals, as has been witnessed previously at the Chandigarh hockey grounds in the past to our deep shame.

It is sickening to note that Cricket, the 'sissy', so called gentleman's game, which is actually a game of cowards because 'YOU HAVE TO HIT AND RUN' or you are done for, pays their players a fabulous amount. Why the stepmotherly treatment to the Indian hockey team players? This is one India, is it not? What will the aam aadmi fans think of this unfair favouritism?

So, it is my earnest desire that our people in the Federation realize that the Indian Hockey Team deserves more than the best we can give them. They have honest and genuine demands, which can be easily addressed and sorted out so that we can bring back home to India the ensuing World Cup, so that we can restore the pristine glory of bringing home accolades from the brotherhood of World Hockey playing nations as Dhyan Chand had done in the past.

Long Live Indian hockey and the Federation. We are sure you will work out an amicable settlement which will be agreeable to both parties .

JAI HIND TO HOCKEY IN INDIA FOREVER AND EVER.