New Year Event Experience Nostalgia | Or What A New Year Party Should Never Be Like | Mumbai NYE 2019

"Happy New Year"

Three words that inspire immense happiness and hope and a zeal for celebration. Food, Fun, Friends, Frolic. After witnessing amazing New Year Parties in countless Bollywood movies, it is but natural for a Mumbai resident (like moi) to want to indulge in some out-of-this-world party. This is what happened 10 years ago...

My college friends (who were avid nightclub goers) decided on a long drive at first but at last minute the plan had to be cancelled because the farmhouse they had rented was rented out to someone else by mistake and there was a lot of confusion. This happened just 2 days before the New Year Eve! And remember, since this was 10 years ago, we did not have active social media scene like now- twitter, facebook were in nascent stage, instgram had not captured our attention and we did not have any centralized website to find out options for celebrating New Year. We had to go by connections, word-of-mouth, all that jazz!

So finally we decided that we would gate-crash whichever NYE Mumbai party we could score last-minute tickets for. Turns out that one of my friend's mother had a friend who got us 8 tickets for a New Year party at a resort at Madh Island. Yoohoo, we were so excited now. Madh Island sounded rad (that was the cool party term back then :P) So 6 of us friends and the kind lady who scored us the tickets plus 1 of her friends, we all landed at this huge resort at Madh Island on 31 December by 9 PM, dressed in our finest part attire and ready to boogie the night away.

(What we expected)

At first glance, it seemed okay. Guests were still streaming in. Of course, real party won't start before 11 PM, we all thought. Till then, we were ready to maybe play some fun games, indulge in light dancing, nosh on some nibbles, down some cocktails...but guess what, there was nothing in sight! Sure the place was all decked up, balloons and streamers and some stray disco balls too, but no food or drinks in sight at all. The invite had made it sound like there would be some entertainment program too but all we witnessed was a sad DJ belting some retro tunes sporadically.

(What we got)

We waited and waited some more. More guests streamed in and finally we saw some servers with trays roaming around. After frantically flailing our arms for 5 minutes, we managed to capture attention of one of them. Chicken drumsticks, that's what arrived. Now half of our party was vegetarians, so our non-vegetarian compatriots polished the plate clean and sent a special request for some vegetarian delicacies. Half an hour later, we got a plate of Paneer tikkas after 4 rounds of about half a dozen non-vegetarian dishes had paraded through the area. Come on, this is India, it is not difficult to come up with 3-4 good vegetarian appetizers at a New Year Eve Party. 

Meanwhile, 2 singers had started a sort-of entertainment program on the vast stage. They were good, but this was not supposed to be a singing event. Where was entertainment? Dancers? Maybe a magician? Maybe an emcee with some jokes, some fun games? Something to make it an interactive event? No idea. 

(What we wanted)

Finally around 11.30 PM, we were famished and started searching for proper food. There had to be main course and dessert, right? Especially for us vegetarians who by now were fed up of Paneer Tikka :P We found a small shack with literally 3 items- Fried Rice, Manchurian, some Mutton gravy. That's it. And unlimited Vanilla/ Strawberry scoops of ice cream. Yay!

(What we got was worse than this)

After dancing for 15 more minutes and watching a half-hearted cracker bursting at the stroke of midnight, we left the venue, trying very hard to convince ourselves that we had not been to just a kid's birthday party and this really was a New Year Eve Party. We reached home by 3 AM and the ride in car on the way back was more entertaining than the entire 3 hours we spent at this so-called New Year Party celebration.

But fret not, 10 years later, I know now that no situation like this can happen with my group of friends on NYE 2019. Just came across HighApe that seems to be the ultimate one-stop platform for discovering India's best nightlife options. And guess what, they have a handpicked list of New Year Events & Parties in Mumbai. No more landing at strange places with false promises of a rocking time, HighApe is where we get to pick and choose our poison aka New Year 2019 Event ourselves. 

How does a 'Masquerade Experience' sound? Intriguing enough? Or maybe NYE 2019 Event at an amusement park is more your thing..well how does 'New Year Bash at Imagica' sounds then? Fun, Food, Friends, Music, Dancing, Live Acts and more..it is all there ready for us to choose from and make our New Year 2019 very special. I am logging on to make NYE 2019 awesome for me and my friends, and hope you do so too :)

Source : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5