thank you

so the party was a grand success and so was the opening of the 50 gift basket. "I am overwhelmed" said the birthday boy. A big thank you to all our guests and especially to weed, shalini and adit, sumi, ma, mitul, arti n, mummy, aman, priya, kots... for contributing to the making the 50 gifts happen.
Aman - you were a discovery! your music was the life of the party. We had people raving about it till this evening about it!
everybody : watch this space for the fab photos taken by dev and deep..

program details

so the program details as they stand confirmed now are as follows :
27.05.08
8:00 p.m. - Mainland China (where else!), Senapati Bapat road, Pune
31.05.08
8:30 p.m. - Paradise towers Lawns.

out of town arrivals are staggered between today and the rest of the week till Saturday afternoon.
The birthday boy will be told about this blog only on the 31 st ... so folks mums the word till then!

ready to go..

so we are all set.. caterer has been organize, the cooking place designated, the decor chosen, the invites done, the valets organised, the box is getting done, should start getting packed this weekend. And yes, my leave sanctioned.

The family starts arriving on Monday..

There is excitment in the air...

So. Tia and I went and got the baskets to put the gifts in... We got two huge wicker baskets which will be spray painted gold and decorated with white ribbons.
Tomorrow I'll be spraying painting them. I've no idea what to expect. If they turn out bad we'll just have to paint over the spray paint.
It will definitely be done by early next week.

Almost there!!!

ACK! Nine days to go! We're pretty much set. Kind of. Sort of. The developments are..

1. The caterer has changed. We're now going with Oh Calcutta! For those of you who don't know, it is owned by the same people who own Mainland China. It's Bengali cuisine...and the cuisine from Calcutta as it was in the British era. They've just taken over the Bombay Brasserie above the Mainland China on Dhole Patil Road, so...that's the food.

2. The venue is definitely on the building lawn. We were a little iffy because the caterers need space to cook etc. But Oh Calcutta! is ok with the place so venue is done.

3. Invites are happening thick and fast. Number of guests look to be between 70-100.

4. People start arriving from Kolkata/New York/Mumbai from Monday.

Will be updating very soon!

What a well-groomed Birthday Boy!

We've selected a bee-yoo-tee-fool crew-neck sweater from Hackett, some pretty bedlinen from Laura Ashley and the moisturiser he so loves.
Yes, my dad really does use Ultra Smooth Coco De Mer from Molton Brown.

And then teases me for primping too much! HMPH!

And another...

Jasdeep(nephew of the Birthday Boy) is giving his esteemed uncle a carton of Classic Regular cigarettes!

More presents gone...

Sumitra is getting Hajmola, Himalaya medicines, green tea, Haldiram's chana nuts and muesli.

Time's a-going

Hi all, we're back from a couple of exhausting weeks of work and studying, so now our main focus is on The Big Day. Shuchita and I going gallivanting next weekend for a bunch of stuff from the '50 Favourite Things' list.
So if any of yall are planning on giving anything from the list, please let us know by Friday so we can strike it off our shopping list. Stuff like Listerine, Old Monk, Classic Regular, model musical instruments are on our list. We're also ordering a bunch of stuff online such as the Laura Ashley bed-linen. So drop us a line if you think you want to gift him anything from the list.

We've started making calls and ordering...sorry inviting people to come. Sooooo...lots to do, but methinks we're well on our way.
Weed...all your phone calls are frantic re. So call whenever, it's cool.

While we're on the subject of crossing presents off the list, here's another one. The white plates. I'm getting those for the birthday boy.
Tia- expect a frantic phone call from me regarding details of the white plates. Design, rim, width, etc etc.

one more present off the list

Folks, The birthday boy has already bought himself a Fushia Dunlop book!! the latest one called "sharks fin and sichuan pepper - a sweet and sour memoir of eating in China"

He announced that he ordered it on the net for himself over dinner today and Tia and me froze.. the guy has to stop buying presents for himself.

The Protap update .. have spoken to sis-in-law in mumbai, she had some great suggestions on the menu. She has been ordering from Protap for a few years and is abrilliant cook herself. Strongly recommends the food.

Now that we have these suggestions, one only needs to start negotiating for the best rates.

Across The Country

Hmmm... So I'm here, finally. I mean I will be there on D day, hopefully (depending on my leave status, but I think I have that under control) and I really need to know which of the gifats are still open. All the Kol-centric gifats, hopefully???? Though, I must admit, am a leetle disappointed with the menu. Seems such a waste coming down from sonar bangla to eat bhetki paturi. Rest assured folks, I shall be the snooty relative saying, "feesh fry kintu thando cheelo! Sniff!"

Sorry for the silence people, we're all tied up with exams and work and such-like.
The booze has started arriving. Boxes upon boxes...what fun!
A big thank you to Anand uncle and Arti's dad for making all the arrangements.

Weed and I will begin work on the invites soon.

We'll be back asap!

Ok, so we worked around the firewall at work and I managed to wind my way here. Seems to be a nice place to hang out - they have food (kiwi) and booze (liquifier) and just to round it off, weed! Sounds like 3 of Bhepu's favourite things right there. I know I am in august company - what w/ creative names like that. The creativity-index of a person can be judged by the number of levels of abstraction by which the person's real name is removed from the blog name. My blog name, I am happy to report is - Aditto. That said, I can absolve my self of any creative contribution to this blog. I do promise to make a concerted effort to turn up for the b'day celebrations w/ copious thirst and hunger - hey, someone has to do the job!

Jolly good idea, this blog. God bless you both.

protap at the basus

So .. Touched base with Protap caterers.. mmm I am already salivating thinking of the bhetki Paturi, chingri malai curry and the kosha mangsho.

Looks like they do a fair amount of catering in Pune. We should be meeting sometime this week to discuss logistics.

The 27th May party seems to be moving steadily towards a mainland china dinner.

Any suggestions for decorations anybody? Planning to speak to Nikhil at work (events manager at Ishanya)

Listen up!

People...a couple of things.

1. We're still sending out invites to contribute to this blog. If you want to be a part of this and have not received an invite, please mail either Shuchita or me.

2. The guest-list is up. Feel free to scroll through and let us know if we've missed anyone out.

3. This blog is a work-in-progress. I'm trying to work out a template which gives us maximum space to add our own lists, photos, drafts for the invites etc. So there will be changes and switch-arounds happening very often. Bear with me ok?
I'm also trying to set up a countdown clock so we know exactly how long we have.

That's it for now!

To be honest, I have no idea what I'm doing on this blog.
It must be something to do with the fact that I love food, Arindum makes excellent food and the Lollypop Artist is a close friend of mine.
I don't know how I can contribute. Work will 'ave to be delegated to me. I can organise, and in all modesty, I'm pretty creative.
So Suchita, fire away and your work will be done.

One last thing... Thank you Lollypop Artist for inviting me to this blog. Arindum Basu is one very special person. Basically because he is the only person in my life to compliment my appetite. To everyone else my contant hunger is just annoying.

just so you know.. a couple of presents on the list are booked.. the Levis 501s are gone. the chinese ingredients are the fillers - we will use them when there is nothing else to add to make up for the fifty.

this blog will also have an update on the other party prep..

Catering : spoke to Deep to help me get in touch with Protap caterers from Mumbai. If that works out we will have bengali food on 31 st and chinese on 27 th.

Venue : as of now, paradise towers poolside

booze : the list for Anand uncle(army canteen) has been given to Shalini. will know progress soon.

guest list has 130 guests so far. will upload that soon ..do let us know if there is any one we have missed out. Invites will be sent in the first week of April. Any interesting ideas for the invite anyone ?

Step 1

Hey all. So...we're planning a big 50th birthday bash on Saturday the 31st of May 2008 for our favourite Chinese chef/bald man/music-freak etc.
Shuchita and I(Tia) had this idea of putting together 50 of his favourite things into a big gift-basket.
Small things that are a big part of his life...like Old Monk rum, Chinese ingredients, muesli etc. However much or however little you know him, we'd like to know what makes him special to you or reminds you of him in any way.
We've started a list that I'm putting up here. We need ideas for the list, and in general for the party prep. As of now, we're looking at a 100-odd people down by the pool in our building.

Decorations, gifts(you can either choose/add something to the 50 things list or choose something of your own,)..suggestions of any sort are very welcome.

The 50 favourite things is a complete secret so please do not spill it!

Cheers!