Why a potluck party is the best kind of party to get invited to

This year, Akanksha Gajria orchestrated a birthday party pre-destined to become a core memory—all from her recovery bed. Laid up after a gall bladder surgery, forbidden from eating anything that hadn’t been whipped up in her own kitchen under the strictest guidance of her doctor, she chanced upon an Instagram story by a fashion magazine’s editor. Potluck. Of course, she thought: There was her answer to “How do I celebrate my 39th birthday while having people over and not feeling FOMO about all the good food they’re having?”

Soon, twenty people descended on her Bandra home bearing Bihari mutton curry (which they wiped up with idlis and appams), chicken cutlets and date rolls wrapped in bacon. It also marked her husband’s foray into baking—he whipped up dark chocolate cupcakes that tasted like devotion. “Everyone just brought something made at home. Different flavours and minds came together and conversation just flowed, which was amazing to see for a person like me who is not a foodie,” Gajria tells me. “Food brings people together, especially when you have such a vast section of people who don’t really know each other. I needed that warmth, in people and in the food.”

Consider the modern socialising landscape. Like Carrie Bradshaw and her flock of very busy women carving out time for each other over power lunches, you’re queuing for an hour to eat ramen with the maitre’d tapping their smartwatches. Or, like a modern-day Clarissa Dalloway, you’re attempting to coordinate your entire phone book’s dietary preferences via a WhatsApp group that’s spiralling out of control. Enter the potluck: the low-lift, high-reward way of partying that possesses those increasingly rare qualities: community, variety and a grain of surprise.

Not that the potluck ever truly went out of style. Our parents knew this secret all along, gathering around groaning tables while we eyed the cake hiding in the kitchen. But somewhere between Zomato’s rise, restaurants with shifts and overcrowded NYE bashes where total strangers find any excuse to accidentally grope your behind, we forgot that the answer to “Where should we go?” might just be, “Your place. I’ll bring the kheema.”

“I feel like we do it almost every month now,” says PR professional Anindita Kannan. Growing up in Dubai, Kannan watched her parents build a social network with other nuclear families by inviting people over with their favourite dishes. Moving to Delhi and then to Bengaluru, Kannan has perfected the art of themed potluck parties in the last decade, hosting them on the vast terrace garden of her Domlur penthouse-style apartment.

She’s done garlic-themed nights where people brought hot-cross buns, aiolis and hummus. When the weather is nice, she’s done barbecues where everyone brings their favourite meats and vegetables in unique marinades. She’s hosted cook-offs judged MasterChef-style for no reason other than to make things fun. Kannan thinks the return of the potluck might be generational: “We watched our parents do it, and now that we’re in our 30s, have kids and homes where we can host, we’re excited to get back into cooking.” Our reasons for hanging out might have been different in our 20s, she adds, and now it might be that we all just want to participate again.