I am the kind of person who sighs a deep breath of relief on Fridays. I love work but five days is all I can take! Plus spending time at home with family is so much more fun than dealing with some of the colourful and remarkable characters at work. I am what can be safely categorized as a ‘home bird’- happy in the outside world but happiest at home. Its no surprise then that I am the first person to yell “TGIF!!” at the end of a work packed week.

This past Friday, the boss had organized a dinner for all staff members. A three-day seminar on Communication had been organized for representatives from across locations in Mumbai. The dinner was to note the culmination of the seminar. I wasn’t a part of the seminar but was cordially invited for the dinner nevertheless- to get introduced to the tens of people I had talked to on the phone numerous times but never met in real life. To my mind there are only two reason why I wasn’t asked to join in the seminar:

  • My communication skills are par excellence. I honestly need no further improvement.
  • Someone has to stay back at office too. To field all the phone calls, the emails and generally handle the back-end operations.

Though I would love to believe that the first reason was the real reason for not involving me, I know, in actuality,  it was the second one that saw me sitting in office on all three days, while the others did whatever it was that they were to do.

So like I was saying, I was invited to this nice dinner to generally interact with everyone and get to know those I hadn’t met. Initially I wasn’t too excited about going for the dinner mainly because I knew an “early dinner” would end around 10 pm at night and traveling at night isn’t one of my favourite things to do. I am still a Delhi girl at heart. I still think its sensible to get home by 7.30 pm. Years of living in Mumbai had  taught me that returning home at ungodly hours is just fine- I have done it a few times myself and come home unscathed. In my mind I know its perfectly safe, but intellect doesn’t always over-rule years and years of habituation.  When boss asked me to confirm if I was coming, I dilly-dallied for a while. She seemed keen on having me at the dining table so she ordered one of our staff member-HM(remember him?) to escort me back home. With that arrangement in place , I couldn’t say no.

The venue for the dinner was this open-air, terrace restaurant called Sheesha. I had never heard of this place but I am told it was highly recommended by others to boss. My first impression of the place wasn’t too good. Since we were a group of 20, we had split into smaller groups and were going to reach the venue either by car or auto. A colleague-S and I were the auto-users and surprisingly the first to arrive. All through the journey to the restaurant I kept asking S “Why will someone name an eating joint Sheesha? What has mirror to do with food??!” She hadn’t any answers. The restaurant itself gave no clue whatsoever about the rationale behind its name. I was expecting a place that had lots of mirrors in its décor- a  la sheesh mahal. What I got was a dimly lit lobby with 6 reclining chairs and one-solemn looking receptionist.  The lighting was so low that it was difficult to discern anything. To describe it in one word, it was shady. The receptionist was neither friendly nor warm. In fact, she looked straight of a horror movie-with the low table lamp offering strange countours and colour to her already overly done up face.  S and I were contemplating if it would be wiser to wait at the ground floor and for the others to arrive, when boss walked in. She seemed quite excited about the place. Her excitement rubbed off on us.  Moving away from the spooky lobby to the open air restaurant helped quite a bit too. By the time the rest of the gang arrived, the spooky lobby and the scary receptionist were long forgotten.

Technically this was my first official social gathering. And I think I was fairly good at it. I am proud to say I have finally learnt the art of making small talk with people I have known for exactly 2 minutes and to smile amiably when I have nothing to add to the conversation( which, by the way, is very very rare.) I think I also managed to interact with some of the very senior personnel with poise. All in all it was a fun dinner. The food could have been better but I am not complaining. I couldn’t quite get the connection between an open air restaurant that offers barbequed delicacies as it specialty and the dhinchak Bollywood numbers either. Nor could I understand why the waiters wore sad expressions on their faces and were generally disinterested in their job.Doesn’t do much for the ambiance, really. The lack of sheeshas was intriguing too and remained a mystery till the very end. But all in all, it wasn’t that bad. The interesting company of new people made up for the drawbacks of the restaurant.

Though Friday’s dinner was fun, late nights and I don’t get along too well. Needless to say, I was in a dazed state from Saturday morning till  afternoon.  While Saturday saw me dazed and confused, Sunday found me with my oven mittens on. I picked up a recipe from Homecooked for scones and tried it out. The end result was good- I wolfed down 3 ,right out of the oven. This is my first attempt at making biscuits/cookies/scones of any kind and I lack any of the fancy cooking apparatus! After that satisfying baking session, I am all set to go back to work on Monday.