Women’s Day Tea Party

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8. The idea of celebrating this day is for recognizing the importance of women’s role in the society. It is an occasion to review how far they have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize for meaningful change.

And I got opportunity to unite and network with women this week end when I got an invitation from Rushina to attend her Tea party at her studio.

All I could feel was thrill, thrill, thrill!

At 4pm I arrived with my friend at APB cook studio. I am always impressed at this cook studio that has a large kitchen with 6 working stations. Plus there are shelves of products on sale that include sauces, jams and other food items, there are also food magazines and other interesting kitchen articles like apron, kitchen clocks that we may not find at other places.  

The room was filled with beautiful well-dressed ladies, all with their smart phone, ready to click the event. There was ample food and drinks to pamper the taste buds. There were bite size desserts from ‘Icing on Top’, mini cakes from ‘Piccoli Tortini’, sauces from ‘i2cook’ , wine from ‘Fratelli wines’, tea from ‘tea Trunk’. The evening was all about networking, sharing of ideas and communicating. I had an interesting conversation with Meeta who updated me on healthy eating.

The evening was packed with activities like sharing the skills and demonstration of recipes.

Akshola Honawar of ‘Runal Salon’ educated us on hair care telling us the importance of massage and spa.

This was followed by the reading of a book “Escape from Harem’ by Tanushree Poddar.

Next there was a discussion on adding prunes to our regular diet followed by demonstration of recipes with prune by Harsha Sabnani

Rushina demonstrated the recipe of stuffed mushrooms and chicken in orange juice and wine, which was tangy and sweet, an interesting combination.

The evening was lovely, made lots of new friends and yes, not to forget the gift hamper that had peanut butter, pitted prunes, a test tube bottle of tea leaves, fig jam and spicy Paan masala

Tea Party for Seniors Only

My friends and I organized and hosted a ‘tea party’ for senior members of my society today.

Every evening, I see few senior ladies of my building sit in the compound chit chatting. They discuss TV programs, news and all the gossip in the building. On the days when I am too lazy to go for my evening walk to a park near Linking Road or by the sea-shore at promenades, I opt for a casual walk around my building, but within ten minutes of my walking, these women start inviting me to sit down with them and join into their discussions. Their topics are interesting, no doubt, but nothing creative. During one of those meanderings, I decided to do my bit of adding some spice to their evening meeting and thus the idea of tea party popped into my mind.

I discussed it with other members of my society and younger group seemed interested to go by my plan. Together, we planned menu and games and the guest list.

They arrived, sharp at 6pm, smartly dressed.

We played two games, housie and passing the parcel and I must say, they were quite cooperative and sporty. The most entertaining part was the punishments like reciting two times table, ranting complains, talking about their anecdotes in their 20’s, and we were surprised to hear their stories. They talked animatedly, relating in details the stories of their youth and were very happy to find such enthusiastic listeners. They danced, sang old songs and were so very cheerful when they received gifts. Their eyes brightened up, thanking us for making them feel so special and wanted such parties planned regularly, some even suggested a picnic to some park.

The party was a great success with home cooked snacks like patties, sandwiches, cakes, dhoklas and vadis. There was cold drinks and tea. There was no pressure/obligations on who contributes what, everybody volunteered freely and there was even a take-away-gift for everyone.

And the happiness overflowed, such is the joy I received today in my building compound