Birthday-e-bash and more

The week started in a very uneventful manner. Until I logged into Facebook. The walls were flooded with ‘Birthday Wishes’ to our very sweet and popular blogger Swaram. Messages were pouring into Swaram’s profile 🙂 and when Masood said ‘this is a social event’ we realised the event deserved enough coverage 🙂 Then Uma suggested Swaram start an ‘event’. And before the birthday girl could think twice, I started the Event on her behalf 🙂 with this note:

Guys/Girls,
I have butterflies in my stomach as I invite you to attend the glitzy (er, is that a word?) event of our very dear Swaram’s birthday party 🙂 Do come and leave some words behind, esp if you can pull her leg or reveal some interesting secrets or anecdotes 😉 Even otherwise, do come 🙂
From:
All her friends from Blogworld
P.S: Feel free to gate-crash 🙂

And guess what? Within an hour, we had 28 ‘confirmed guests’! Deeps, Vichu, Baisali, Pixie, Uma, PnA, Monu, Padma, Sagarika, Any Excuse to Write, Iya, Ashwini, Trishna, Nupur, Nancy, Rakesh, ChatterBox, Saritha, IHM, Rakesh, Indy, Supriya, Meira and Masood….

It was a rocking party.. Swaram’s birthday wishes and post on her blog spread a lot of excitement around. Guests started pouring in questions, and it was fun to see Swaram answering all of them.

First was a boring question from me: If you were stranded on an island, and had to choose ONE Man to accompany you, who would it be? Please refrain from mentioning names of spouse/parents/siblings/children 🙂

Swaram’s answer: Rahul Dravid

Uma spiced up things a bit with her question: ‘Where would you like to go for your Second Honeymoon ? Why ?’
Swaram’s answer: ‘Mt Everest’
Meira’s response: ‘She said Honeymoon not Pilgrimage, Swathi’
The rest is censored, folks 😉

Rakesh’s san-sani question: ‘Interview Question: Finally all the blogging and commenting paid off when you got the Most Responsive Blogger Award by public voting. How would you have felt if Hitch would’ve got the award instead? 😛 Honest Answer Please!!!’
Swaram: ‘Vimmuuu won it he he he ;)’
Rakesh, however, was not one to take a beating. He persisted with ‘But swar, how did you feel when Vimmu won it and not you? Did you feel like counting all the comments that you’ve posted and showing statistics to the world, how you should’ve won?’
Swaram very diplomatically replied ‘Err he called me and wished me today .. so, no comments ;)’

Meira wanted to know ‘My question: Swaram, Who has presented you with the worst birthday
gift so far??? as it goes…HONEST answer. No diplomatic answers/no for an answer accepted’
The answer was rather anti-climax 😉 ‘ribbons…school ribbons’.

Rakesh bombarded the event with one more question ‘What is the 1 thing that you really want, you’re really praying for, your husband to do for you today without you telling him to? And no, Don’t say – I’d like him to put the toilet seat up before… he he’

The birthday girl – true blooded Venetian – replied ‘That he does not watch Wimbledon or football today and devotes all his time to me ahem ;)’

IHM asked (intelligently, as always): ‘How does it feel, Swaram, to be born on the longest day on the year (21 June) – so you can have the longest birthday? :)’
Swaram: LOL … gives ppl more time to give me some birthday bumps 😛 😛 😛

Pixie threw a tiny bombshell with ‘My question – Whose wishes did you NOT expect?!’
Swaram diplomatically said :’Time pass .. she is a blogger too 🙂 Never thot she wud send such a personal mail @ that 😀 😀  That very much means I expected all ur wishes 😛 :P’

Sumita: If you could have 3 wishes granted, what would they be? 😀
Hmmmm … that I cn get my grandma bk 😛 😛
I want a vacation to Venice soooooon
Another one .. ice-creams and cakes and chocolates go calorie-free 😛

Well Swaram, we all hope you get your second two wishes as soon as possible 🙂

Deeps Perceptions: Ok heres’ an easy one for you, Swar.. whats the whackiest funniest crackiest joke you’ve ever heard which makes you laugh like crazy even today?? C’mon humour us now!
Swathi Ram Hee hee hee that I am good girl 😛 😛
Deeps Perceptions- seriously,swar..u think thats the funniest joke you’ve heard?? c’mon think hard and give us some real laughs!
Deeps Perceptions- that I asked you to ‘think hard’ can still be considered funnier since you hardly think… bhagooooooo!

Monu: ok what is the weirdest bday wish or present

Now, FB did not allow me to see this answer 😦

Uma’s simple question ‘I’ve one more…Which birthdays were the best for you – the ones before marriage or after marriage ???? u have ever got?’
set a ball rolling in a very interesting direction 😉

Miss Diplomacy replied: ‘After marriage and blogging .. bcoz with parents n family, I nw hv the husband and u guys too 😉 ;)’

Unfortunately the rest of this thread cannot be posted in a public space 😉

Meira got us all laughing with this post: ‘Since the birthday girl is busy, lets all share our hilarious moments with her….
I’l go first. She read my post on my parents’ anniversary and went ahead and wished her parents a ‘happy anniversary’ instead of a ‘happy journey’ :D’

Unfortunately, just when Swaram started opening up with spicy details of ‘Chins’ and ‘Muns’ Facebook had the audacity to Block her from writing on walls!!! This was her farewell post:  ‘FB tells me that I am posting lots of comments and that too very fast…its asking me to enter test code to confirm identity… *rolling my eyes* …this is bad…FB can outcast me like this…‘

So well, the e-party had to end early!!

But yes, we had a GREAT time 🙂

Oh, and now for the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT.

Winner of the prestigious ‘Best Interviewer’ trophy. While many of the questions were excellent, we felt the trophy should go to this very persistent interviewer… none other than .. Rakesh!! So congrats, Rakesh! (Hope I got your blog link right!!) Here is your trophy:

Signing off for now, but looking forward to the next e-Party soon 🙂

Cheers all around people!!!

P!ng – I have news!

P!ng! I have news!!

No! Its not what you think. Its not on the personal front 😉 This is an interesting piece of info for all my Bangalore blogger buddies.

Most of my friends are enthusiastic foodies like me. And more often than not, we spend hours arguing about the ‘venue’ for a get-together or party or even a simple girlie’s (or boys, for that matter) hangout. The key points are either ambience or cuisine.

It is indeed challenging to zero in on a venue, especially when there is so much choice! You look around, and you are virtually mobbed by a variety of restaurants offering mouth-watering delicacies.

This is where  P ! N G   enters the picture.

A new entrant in Bangalore, P!ng Restaurant and Dessert Bay is a speciality restaurant, unique in more than one aspect.

These guys specialise in Dim Sum cuisine and offer around 35 unique varieties of Dim Sum. [Dim Sum cuisine, while very well known in the US, South East Asia and China, is not very well known in India. P!ng aspires to popularise Dim Sum cuisine for what it is – large variety, impeccable taste , great flavours and healthy ingredients]. (Now, that part is copy-pasted from their website 😉 )

 

 (By the way, they even have an exciting Children’s Menu).

The Dessert Bay (open from 10 am till 12 midnight!), is targetted more at the young student crowd, offers intriguing mocktails, ice cream and delicious pastries.

 

 Here is the link to the address and map. They are open 7 days a week – 12:00 pm to 3:30 pm and 7:00 pm to 11:30 pm.

If you are wondering why I wrote this, no, I have absolutely no ulterior motives 😉 (except, probably, the fact that this is owned by Rajanikanth*)!

I love going to restaurants that really have a difference! Locale, ambience, or Menu…anything that lends a certain charm to the place.

From the website and reviews, it seems like P!ng has it all! Try it out for yourself.

P.S. Did you know, they offer a free starter and dessert! He he! Now, if that isn’t motivation enough, then what is?!

You are also invited to follow P!ng on Facebook

(Pics: Courtesy: http://www.thepingrestaurant.com/)

* P.S. By ‘Rajanikanth’, I did not mean the Actor, but a friend of mine 🙂