Last night, got a surprise invite to a Christmas party by Phenom & Friends – sponsored by Noella.

Had initial misgivings given the age difference, but Mrinal soon set them aside, so I packed up wife and kid (the latter sacrificed an episode of “Sanjeevani”!!!) and headed off for the place.

Am I glad we went, or what?

We sang, we kidded, we ate and we joked. We had a whale of a time!

Throughout the party, only one kind of music played – the Phenom Live CD from LB/2002 – and it sounded so good. It was great fun watching each Phenom member dissect his/her performance

Food was Pizza. Then more pizza. The first lot rocked, the second lot was from Pizza corner and came laden with chillies!

Noella’s dog Tipsy is cute. She provided ample entertainment (especially when she started romancing whatshisname).

Ashwin and Gaurav provided sufficient legpulling to make everyone look taller, and Mrinal and JD took turn at the piano (yeah – a real, live piano!) while Gaurav and I manned guitars, doing “No woman no cry”, “Imagine”, “Everything I do (I do it for you)”, “My Bonnie”, etc. And yeah, we did “Free as a Bird” – and JD *still* couldn’t get the chords right!

No alcohol at all – which goes to prove that you don’t need booze to have a good time. All it takes is good friends, good food and good music.

On the way home, the previously hesitant Shubha and Anjali chimed in – “that was fun – can we do it again?”

Yup. Soon. Real soon!

Thanks, everyone! You made our Christmas!