The Party Circus

It is enlightening to observe people at a social get together-real skins get peeled off and masks appear or rather the vice versa. Everyone’s out to project that they are the hippest and the happiest although the way their eyes peer around in an unnamed search, you feel their loneliness even in crowds. Then there are others who revel in mirth and frivolity, who would be living it up, getting drunk, and dancing their effing shoes off, inhaling pleasure like oxygen and exhaling oomph like carbon dioxide. You feel they are having fun but by then end of it all, they'll be falling over those who smile on their face but turn around and grimace or those who smirk harbouring deeper, murkier intentions within. And then there are those who are trying to ‘get in’, some trying to get out and those who are wanna-be’s. The party scene is suddenly very pretentious or have I turned old?

The bejewelled and the well draped lady who never repeats an outfit and always has her husband by her nape, is the ‘poor girl’ who is doing the dizziest rounds in the gossip circles as the one being cheated upon and shut up with the trinkets, reduced to the mere decked up version of the Hutch puppy. The garrulous dude, the centre of all attention, is regaling everyone with his wit, being round the clock conscious and perhaps nervous within of all who are watching and all whom he must impress for his night to be truly triumphant. The out-of-vogue girl, who dresses up weird enjoying the imbalance of shocking striking colours and hairdos that raise many a hair, romps around like a kitten let loose thinking the world is her runway. The poise perfect, dressed in brands that scream posh and heels that could dare to look at towers eye to eye, mingles with a rare charm although her feet are killing her and the plastic smile is becoming more than apparent.

The douche-bags who come to a party not for the party or the host but to dissect the people, strip them naked of clothes and emotions in their dirty mind’s eye, watch others act and let lose their guard, allowing the douche his moment of voyeuristic kick. Others come as the gossip vines for they only want to observe who is in which corner with whom or who sneaked out and is missing in action with someone else’s arm candy and that’s besides already having the onerous task of keeping count of who drank what and how much. The joker, who evokes laughter but are too duh to realize that people are laughing ‘at him’ instead of ‘with him’!

The clicking smiley faces love to move around wherever the shutterbugs go so that they get their Page 3 moment on facebook the next day. They have the biggest of smiles, not for people but for the lenses that would project them visually springy minus the verbal tales. The drunk on booze who have no clue what they are saying or doing and the drunk on beauty who have no clue if they are mouthing something dumb for they are too busy exuberating ‘I am too sexy for this party’. There is also the want-to-know-all who would be standing with you in a seeming conversation but wants to know who is the woman talking to X or without your asking shower you with his thesis done on the who’s who in the party. His sole aim in life is to make sure he knows them all so that they know him too and if there is someone he does not, he looks for ways to get introduced. Not a target should be spared.

The corner grabbers who do nothing through the party but sit in some dingy corner where they can’t be seen while they get the front seat view of all the madness circumventing on the dance floor. They have better things to do like text on mobiles or gulp down the snacks or watch everyone with disdain, feeling how the world is going to the dogs. Also in the same circuit would be the opportunists-those who use the fact that the music is too loud to come dangerously close brushing their lips against someone ears to try out the possibilities, those who dress a little too less or a little too much to grab attention, those who mingle to form some contacts and those who do so to avoid some others.

And amongst this all is a swish-swash of formal hugs as well as deliberate long embraces, sugar coated muaaahs and affected compliments, serious bitching and flirtish twitching and the obnoxious query of ‘how are you?’ for you know the answer will always be ‘fine’ and always an understatement. And where am I in this circus? I am switching garbs of one of these roles to another, trying to find my footing and fun.

But where is the fun? What happened to good old, good times?

P.S. (warning-mini post ahead): Sorry I am in a blah mood that is refusing to let go. I remember reading a statement made by a comedian once, god help me for I do not remember his good name. But he deserves all the credit for his words which often reverberate in the corners of my mind:

“It is a tough life making others laugh...and somehow just because I am funny on screen, people assume I would be the same in real life even without scripts. I often meet fans who would walk up and say, alright, say something funny and look at me expectantly with gaping mouths-I don’t know what to do then.”

I feel a tad of the same. Somewhere down the line I gathered the repute of being the funny blogger, who creates a laugh riot through her posts-if I sound as though I am complaining, please pardon me for I am eternally grateful for earning this formidable little claim to fame. But sometimes I feel a sort of pressure to write for the readers instead of writing for myself. I used to earlier employ this space as my journal-you know by and large rant about my life and feelings and somehow it transformed to being tirades on issues-the funny ones, where I felt and stripped my feelings less and opined and ripped the outrageous more. I like the adulation as a humorist but I loved the venting as a human. Often I write things I might want to voice my views on not the political or general awareness ones-please, I won’t be able to muster anything on those matters even if I went into amnesia and someone convinced me to read the newspapers daily, saying I was the chief advisor to the Prime Minister but they end up in drafts perpetually. Anyways, what I am saying is that I can’t be funny all the time. Hopefully I will the next time you are here :-)