Update on Christmas party..

The Christmas party went off well. My dress was a big hit – there were a lot of people who came up to me and complimented me. Then there were some who said that they did not recognise me. I am not sure if that was meant as a compliment or an insult, but since it is the season of festivity and cheer, I am going to take it as a compliment.

The party itself was great or rubbish, depending on whom you asked. There was a free bar and loads of alcohol flowing around, but no proper food. Just canapés and finger food. That’s good if you can eat whatever’s on offer – but for somebody like me who is a vegetarian, it can only mean one thing – disaster. It wasn’t even a buffet – just pretty, svelte, nimble, young little girls walking around with platters of food. So of course, if you were not lucky enough to sit anywhere near where the waitresses chose to walk, you were left high and dry. In my case, an additional layer of complexity of those platters having to be vegetarian meant that my chances were even slimmer. Suffice to say that there were a lot of hungry, angry people out there that night.

I don’t know what it is about alcohol which makes people start behaving in a really strange and rather foolish way. There was a lady from the restaurant whose job that evening it was to walk on stilts dressed like an angel. Of course I don’t know what the point of that was, but that’s another story. My colleagues were dishing out one crude joke after another, standing next to the stilt lady and all she could do was smile. It was not just their jokes, their whole behaviour, mannerisms, attitude was wrong. I could not stand there after a while – I so wanted to puke.

It was another colleague’s last day at work that day. I have worked with him for a long time and he is one of the oldest surviving few in my department. He was rather drunk too by the time I left. He walked up to me and said something which bordered on inappropriate but I decided to give him the benefit of doubt and walked away as quickly as I possibly could. I don’t know what it is about alcohol which makes it ok for people to take such liberties with people. I don’t have anything with people drinking at all, far from the contrary. But I think its so crucial to know your limits and know when to stop.

Then there was this other senior guy B who had so much to drink that he could not remember where he lived !!! We hailed a cab for him on a crowded, busy road and B had a vacant, blank look on his face. The taxi driver was a good man and so he waited till B finally managed to blurt out where he wanted to go. Of course I don’t know if that was home and frankly I don’t want to know either.

Have a great Christmas everybody and see you on the other side of it.

A Holiday of Many Firsts...

• Back from a week’s holiday in the Netherlands. NL is special to me because it’s the first country I visited and stayed for long durations outside of India and the warmth of my parental home. I also think its such a beautiful country, straight out of a picture postcard. Strangely enough, NL is also the first country the little one visited outside of the UK. I did not wish for it to be this way – I wanted India to take that honour but it did not happen because of various reasons.

• It was the little one’s first flight. The flight on the way out was uneventful with her sleeping most of the way. On the way back, she displayed some impeccable timing, which meant that I had to change her on the flight, which was no mean task. My respect for mothers travelling with infants long distance increased ten-fold then!!

• It was our first family holiday.

• It was the first time I was meeting my friend’s daughter, born in June this year.

• It was also the first time we travelled with so much baggage, what with all the baby equipment.