Jeen's Reception Party

Should we say this person is lucky and blessed to have all of us as friends or Should we say his lovable, good-nature and amiable character linked us to him ?

Whatever is the reason, his marriage was an occasion of adhesiveness for many families and bachelors. This blog is posted for two reasons, one to know the efforts of many who planned and executed their actions without any slip and two to expose my friend to the hidden love and affection attached to his surprise reception party.

Many pinged his dearest friend Binzeer to know what plans she had to make his marriage a memorable one. There were many who showed interest to do something for him as a token of their cozy feelings.
She thought too hard even during her tough support and fasting days. While walking back home, we would chart out some new plans and ideas for his reception party.

The initial germination of having a surprise reception party started in Ranjith, Binzeer and Venkat's mind. On seeing overwhelming responses from Jeen's party invite, the murky dream became clearer.

Following are few highlights of his reception party preparation:

Master Plan:
Plan A
To somehow manage to take Jeen and Ann for a Lunch outside on Sunday afternoon, but finally the idea was to bring them both to POPS party hall.

Plan B
To directly bring back Jeen and Ann from church to POPS party hall.

Personal Invitation:
Solely done by Binzeer. She consulted many if she should mark everyone in CC or BCC while inviting people for the party, as she wanted the invite to be very personal.

Call us crazy, we did what not to make this party a surprise.
Can't even count the number of lies and dramas that each of us enacted to make it 100% surprise. We even trained Jeysri and Srini to lie if required, thereby ensuring not to leak out anything about this party to Jeen and Ann.

Heart-Pulsating Scenes:
#1 - Buzzer
First our plan was to cook in Uma's place. But since Jeen kept frequenting their place even after marriage, We had to find some other alternative spot to ensure he never suspected what was carried out. As my house was easily accessible to everyone, we decided to cook at our place. It looks like Jeen borrowed some zip lock bags from Uma on Saturday evening.
We didn't know the real purpose behind he borrowing the zip lock bags but we started guessing wide and that raised few questions in our mind such as, did he borrow the zip locks to stuff marriage sweets and distribute the same? if so, for sure he would step in Ashwini's place and we would be caught red-handed and our bombshell would break.
We had lots of people coming to my place on Saturday evening to cut vegetables. Every time people buzzed we ensured and confirmed it was not Jeen. After everyone gathered, if at all we heard any door buzzer we double-triple checked to ensure it wasn't Jeen. At around 7.30 P.M on Saturday evening I left to Uma's place to get some tea powder. Nobody noticed when I slipped out and as I was in a rush I neither informed anyone nor picked my house key. When I returned back I had to press the door buzzer, I pressed it thrice, there was no response. I stood outside for 10 minutes, as the whole gang thought it was Jeen and didn't even respond back (so that Jeen would think I had gone out) , they utilized this time to think hard and see how they could divert Jeen from not stepping in my house.

#2- Garland`
I heard from Uma that she and Priya hooked pink petals and did two garlands for Jeen and his wife. Uma and Priya spent almost two and half hours in making this beautiful pink garlands. As in U.S people associate pink with Gals and blue with Guys, Venkat strongly opposed Jeen wearing PINK GARLAND. Uma found Venkat's point to be valid, later she asked him to get some white petals and re-did Jeen's garland.
We were all eager to see Jeen and Ann in the self-made garland during the reception party. When Jeen hesitated to wear the garland, our heart were in total pieces.
We couldn't tell him ,what someone did for him to give him and his wife a real reception effect. But at the end he wore the garland for couple of minutes.

Cover up scenes:
#1
Uma, Binzeer and Ninoshka unloaded huge bags of vegetables from St.Paul farmers market Saturday morning. They never even dreamt Jeen to be up and standing in his balcony to watch them unloading stuffs from the van. When Jeen enquired why she got such bulk quantity of onion and tomato, Uma lied that today was the closing day of farmers market season and that she had got vegetables for the whole world in and around Wilson avenue. Fun part was Jeen himself volunteered to help them out in unloading.

#2
Every time Binzeer/Uma got a call from Jeen, they would run to the bed-room as the living room was filled with people most of the time.
Today morning I heard Uma saying she was still sleeping when Jeen checked to know her availability to drop him at Brindha's place. Though Uma got up by 5.45 A.M, she faked her voice to appear as if she was really sleeping. Jeen was determined and we knew his next move would be with Karthik, Uma immediately called Karthik and asked him to refuse Jeen's request. He too replied back saying that he was busy with cricket match. We totally trapped Jeen and ensured to execute either of our plan(A/B).

Catering Committee:

#1 Veg Cutter Group
Members:
Uma, Binzeer, Nadhiya, Beygan, Karthik, Laser, Nithya, Ninoshka, Abdul,Brindha, Ashwini
Location: our house
This team chopped the volume of vegetables required for the party cooking.
Karthik found it hard to cut vegetables sitting down, but got accustomed to it in sometime. Beygan and Karthik made everyone cry by cutting the red onions. Laser tried his strength on the hard carrots. Abdul left one onion unpeeled. Nadhiya focused on the beans. Two 'N's (Ninoshka and Nithya) were totally in ripping the garlic skin.Brindha finely sliced the cucumbers. Binzeer tried her knife with ginger.
Uma patiently worked on the garlands. I was preparing tomato juices while cutting.



#2 Non-Veg Group:
Members : Brindha, Rajesh and Binzeer
Location: Brindha Rajesh house
Saturday night this team prepared spicy chicken. The members in the team were awake till 3.45 A.M not cooking chicken but chit-chatting about their college life.

#3 Cooking Committee:
Members:
Uma (Head Chef) ,Nithya, Nadhiya, Ninoshka, Binzeer and Ashwini.
Location: Our house
This team headed by Uma started cooking from 6 A.M on Sunday morning. Executive chefs Ninoshka and Nithya grinded cashew and masala paste. Nadhiya's approval was required to check the quality and quantity of food. Binzeer stirred vegetables in the cooker. And me in packing section. Every dish we prepared Uma only thought of Jeen's taste bud.

#4 Vada Group:
Members:
Shobha, Kavitha Ashokan and Jaishree
Location: Bradley Apartment
Jaishree prepared the batter, Shobha flattened the batter to make round vada and Kavitha fried them in oil. Target time 10 A.M accomplished even with high count of 200 vadas.

Solo Performers:
#1
Member: Nadhiya
Dish : Raitha
Considering kids and adults into account two different types of raitha was prepared by Nadhiya.

#2
Member: Vasanth
Dish : Veg Kurma
Even without any help from his spouse and family, he prepared veg kurma all alone.

#3
Member: Kavitha Shyam
Dish : Dhaal
People have different taste buds and Kavitha decided to prepare dish for people who eat food with less spice

#4
Member: Prachi Sathe
Dish: Chappathi
She took efforts to toast the chappathi's purchased from TBS Mart.

Logistics and Transportation Committee:
Members:
Venkat,Abdul and Lazer
Hot food were moved to Venkat's car with some high tech fundas (trade secrets not let out). Prefect on time door delivery to POPS party hall.



THE BIG DAY

Arrival:
Jeen was dressed up in blue shirt while Ann was clothed in pink chudhi. They arrived close to noon.
They looked perfectly attired for the surprise reception party. Uma took pains to shout "Surprise" but the whole crowd remained uncommunicative, probably they were all knocked out seeing the young couple. They were directed to the main table decorated with their marriage photo, banner and flowers.



Cake Cutting Ceremony:
The spongy cake topped with whip cake decorated with candles was cut by two gentle natured people holding together the ribbon bowed knife(done by Abdul in the last minute) . The crowed applauded and Abdul sang "Happy B'day" just to make this ceremony a pleasurable one.



Ragging Session:
Brindha shooted the first question to Jeen. Ranjith was eager to know if there was any fights between them after marriage. Beygan wanted to check the reactions of Ann on seeing Jeen in person for the first time.

Solo Songs and Antakshari:
We had an advise giving old song from Hari and fast wrap Slumdog millionaire song from Srini.
As people were shy to expose themselves as an individual, we decided to play Antakshari. The whole group was divided into two. Jeen and Ann were split into different groups. We had a starting problem for this game. Each of us kept calling others name but none of us had the guts to initiate. The first song was sung by Kavitha and Ashok. We all appreciated their courage and enthusiasm. Each group from then on, tried either to sing two lines or hum just the starting beat of each song. Kudos to Abdul for singing new version of Jana gana mana, as the new version had lyrics listing down all food items in a funny manner. Malayalam song from Kavitha Shyam in Ann's team triggered Jeen to sing another Malayalam song. Everyone continued their tit for tat and finally the whole group dispersed.


Thanks for the invited friends who came in to spare their leisure, relaxing yet a valuable Sunday afternoon with our newly wed couple.



Special Appreciation:
To my new roommate Ninoshka, we all knew Jeen some way (cricket,tennis and football) or the other(project) but she hadn't even seen Jeen. She helped us out in lot of ways during this arrangement. Special thanks to her. Anand for booking the POP party hall and helping us out even in the last crucial minute.

All members patted each other and said we did a great job by preparing lunch and arranging accommodation for 75 people.
Though all of us were from different families and culture, we worked as a single unit to make this party a grand event. Jeen's reception party was well executed to make it enjoyable. Hope Jeen and Ann enjoyed it.

Jeen's feelings are expressed in the following blog:

http://jeengeevar.blogspot.com/2009/09/wedding-reception-in-us-total-surprise.html