In just a few days, most of our chat inboxes will be filled with card-party invites, Karwa Chauth get-togethers and Diwali parties. Some will be expected, while others will come from people whose parties you have never attended in the past. Almost every invite will mention RSVP details, and some will even carry a polite request -–‘Kindly RSVP’ – both of which will be conveniently ignored and treated as almost as irrelevant as the time mentioned on the invite. After all, who even RSVPs?The original idea behind RSVPing is simple: Help the host plan efficiently by knowing in advance how many people will actually turn up. But somehow, the concept doesn’t quite hold true for most of us. In Delhi, saying yes to an invitation is rarely the final word. It is, at best, a tentative expression of interest. Our decision to attend a party depends on several factors. First, how have we been invited? Was it just a WhatsApp forward, was it followed by a phone call, or did someone make the effort to personally invite us? The decision to attend or not attend can change depending on how important we feel the invitation was. Second, there is the commute and traffic situation on a given day. It is highly unlikely that someone in Noida would readily commit to a party at a Gurgaon farmhouse on a weekday. That RSVP requires not just enthusiasm but also considerable faith in the Delhi-NCR traffic. Third, how much social hopping does one have to do that evening? During the festive season, attending three parties in one night is hardly unusual, which means your arrival at party no 3 depends entirely on how long you stayed at party no 1 and whether you ever managed to leave party no 2. And fourth, perhaps the most important question, will we have appropriate company at the party? Who else is going? Is the friend we planned to go with still going? Can we bring a plus-one? A confident ‘yes’ on Monday can easily become a ‘let’s see’ by Friday evening.There can be many more additions to this list, but the point is that most of us seem to find RSVPing an irrelevant exercise. It is something we may customarily say yes to when we receive an invitation, but that answer remains open to revision until almost the moment we leave home. And sometimes even after that. The reverse is equally true. Someone who never confirmed may suddenly message at 8.30pm asking, “Party still on?” and arrive with another person in tow. For the host trying to calculate food, drinks, seating, staff and parking, the guest list can therefore remain a moving target right until the doorbell starts ringing.Even hosts are now used to the fact that few people will RSVP in advance, even when they personally call to invite guests and request a confirmation. In a casual chat, a Delhi host who plans a Diwali party every year said that in the last six years since she has been hosting parties, it has never happened that guests have confirmed their presence or taken the RSVP seriously. Yet, she says, the turnout has usually been better than expected. “It would be so much easier if one gets the RSVP in advance, especially for Diwali parties, mostly planned at a grand scale and involves a lot of pre-planning. Now that we have been organising these parties from some years, we just go by last years’ guest list, the regular ones and those who always say they will come but never come.”Perhaps that is the real Delhi RSVP system. Hosts no longer count confirmations, they rely on experience, previous guest lists and a mental database of who always turns up, who never does and who will say “on my way” while still deciding what to wear.So this festive season, when an invitation lands in your inbox with ‘Kindly RSVP’ printed neatly at the bottom, spare a thought for the host and actually respond. And if you say yes, try turning up too. Now that would be a festive season surprise.
