By Madhusree Chatterjee and Nakshab Khan
New Delhi, Dec 30 (IANS) The capital is hotting up to the year-end mood and money is no object.

While the party-hoppers are checking out the Page 3 party rosters in newspapers and billboards screaming “31st night euphoria” at leading night spots and hotels, the couch potatoes are planning private television parties with home-cooked dinners, garden barbecues and an abundance of wine.

The owner of a sprawling villa at south Delhi’s Sainik Farms is splurging on an elaborate theme party on the ground that the economy is looking up.

“We are going to host a Mediterranean theme party this year. A lot of sun and sand with champagne and French wine will push up the mercury,” the party thrower said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Chefs are being flown in from Mumbai and Singapore for his 30 select guests.

Other private parties have varied themes — European, Chinese, ethnic Indian, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali — each complete with suitable attire and cuisine. The budgets, said the host of a party being planned in Saket, ranges between “Rs.50,000 and Rs.100,000″ per guest.

“The economy is looking up,” he echoed his Sainik Farms neighbour.

For working couple Sanjay and Madhurima Ghosh, residents of Chittaranjan Park, the year will close “with a quiet and expensive dinner at any of the five-star hotels or high-end eateries in the capital”. They have a wide choice.

The Aman and the Lodhi restaurants in the capital have lined up special dinner menus for Dec 31.

“At the Aman, we have a special New Year’s Eve menu followed by a special lavish brunch on Jan 1. The New Year’s Eve dinner will cost Rs.4,000 plus taxes per head, and the brunch Rs.2,900. Children below 12 will be charged half the price,” a spokesperson for Aman told IANS.

The New Year’s Eve dinner at The Tapas in Lodhi restaurant will cost Rs.5,500 per person, without taxes. It will include a glass of champagne. “The spread will be mostly Indian and continental,” a restaurant spokesperson told IANS.

Romance is the theme at the yearend party at restaurant FIO’s at the Garden of Five Senses in Mehrauli. “It is a very intimate party where every guest enjoys his own party with his guests inside a private marquee. The cuisine is global - from Amritsar to America with music by DJ Sonia,” hosts and professional party planners Vineet and Vibha Wadhwa told IANS.

The Tivoli Castle Resort in Chattarpur is hosting a dance-and-dinner party for Rs.3,000 per couple. Five-star hotels like the Radisson, Taj, The ITC Maurya and the Sheraton in the capital are also laying out special dinner spreads on Dec 31 and Jan 1 priced between Rs.4,000 and Rs.5,500 per head.

Those unable or unwilling to spend so much have made separate plans.

“I will eat at the Karim restaurent in Old Delhi with a few friends and then we will spend the night at my home on New Year’s Eve,” Shahnawaz Malik, a journalism student at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), told IANS.

Pranshu Negi, a first year student at the Law Faculty, Delhi University, plans to spend the evening with his girlfriend in a mall. Then he wants to get back home.

“Every year, cultural programmes and Antakshari competitions are organised in our housing society to welcome the new year,” explains Negi, a Ghaziabad resident.

Priyank Sharma, a software engineer employed with Cadence Systems in Noida, says he is going to meet his girlfriend in Hyderabad and has bought tickets to enjoy a concert by DJ Suketu.

But a few like J.K.L. Prasad, a manager with a Delhi-based firm, plans to stay at home with family.

(Madhusree Chatterjee & Nakshab Khan can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in & nakshab.k@ians.in)