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Where were you on New Year's Eve?
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City folks were at party hot spots all over this time. Prema Manmadhan and PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA find out how New Year parties in town just got better
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MOTHER OF ALL CELEBRATIONS New Year Eve parties saw hotels and clubs competing in themes and rates to draw the crowds. And the revellers had a real ball
Where were you on New Year's Eve? Say, "At home" and you will see smirks and arched eyebrows. It is just not in to stay at home on a December 31st anymore, didn't you know?
Celebrations have shifted from home sweet home to plush hotels everywhere. Kochi has been slow to join the metro bandwagon, but is now raring to be part of the partying crowd. Everybody who could hum a tune or shake a leg, was in great demand at the various dos in the city on New Year's Eve. If not at some `Club', they were all standing in queue, either at the cinema or at some hotel, for dinner.
Nobody wants to be cooped up at home, watching the idiot box on New Year's Eve. Parking space was completely filled up. Farewell to 2006 was really a farewell to conservative and small-scale New Year celebrations that happened last year and before.
Grand, ostentatious colourful and innovative is what happened this time perhaps making it a very happening turn of the Year.
"I went to all the party spots in the city and they were full. At the Lotus Club, it was a fun-filled affair, with kids and adults enjoying themselves. At the Taj Malabar, it was well planned and Le Meridien had the largest number of people partying," says Sajeesh Nair, State head, Smirnoff.
"There were about 80 couples," says a staffer at The Casino. Though the theme of the party was `Dawn', the Hindi movie Don was what it was meant to be. Stags were turned away, and allowed in only if they came with couples. The rate was Rs. 5,000 per couple, Rs. 2,500 for stags and Rs. 1,500 for kids.
Music there was aplenty at all the places and dancing, apart from shows by entertainers , right from Usha Uthup to amateur dancers.
At the Metropolitan, it was full house by 9 pm. With the rates at Rs 2,000 per couple, which included food and drinks, many had to be turned away. At the Rama Varma Club, the highlight of the party was Balabhaskar and party, who fiddled away till January 1, 2007. "It was out-of-the-world and we enjoyed every minute," says Lakshmy Krishnakumar.
New Year celebrations just got better, you've got to agree.
The real exotica was at the Taj Malabar where the absolutely fabulous Moulin Rouge was recreated. At Rs.7,000 for a couple the experience was good value for money. The `kick in the air legs show', the stamp of a Moulin Rouge dance was in plenty, said a partygoer who felt that the Russian dancers showed a lot of skin.
The crowd was mainly foreigners and the locals were not from the city but from the interiors like Changanassery and Pala. What was really outstanding was the food and the drinks. Even cigarettes were paid for, he said.
The winds of change are blowing fast and furious in the city as it experienced an international flavour to its celebrations.
At the Trident the Mumbaiyya flavour was recreated at Rs 2,500 for a couple. The music was all Bollywood and the floor was packed till the wee hours of the morning. Bearers dressed as coolies and the Railway platform theme was done in detail at Mumbai Express. The food was continental and very, very tasty, said a regular who's at the Trident every New Year. For that rate, it was, according to her, a very good show.
At the Yacht Club, there were two sections, one for the younger crowd, and the other for the over-40 crowd. At Rs. 2,950 for guests it included dinner and breakfast, but not drinks.
That there was hardly any violence on the roads on New Year's Eve showed that the police were on their toes and partygoers extra disciplined.
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