Surprise! Surprise!!

Okay, after that intro, let’s start with my first REAL post…

If you’ll read my profile carefully, you would see that ‘Vidur Sehgal’ has been a blogger since June 2005. Yes, you read it right, June 2005!!! (The same month Jayant and Richa started blogging, now who would have thought that?!). When I read Jayant’s story (How did the night begin?), I got so inspired that I made a blogger ID to fulfill my longtime dream of writing a thrilling suspense story (I had even started writing a story once, titled ‘The Mystery Of The Missing Crystal’, but that is for another time, another post maybe :D) Anyway, where was I, yes June 2005. Since then it’s been a year and ten months (22 months) and I still haven’t written a post. the reasons for that are the same as I mentioned in my intro post. I know, a silly phobia, but still...

So what made me start now? Well, I was waiting for something spectacular to happen which I would like to share with everyone. And now it has happened! I am not saying that amazing things haven’t happened in these 22 months, they have! I have been on a couple of amazing trips with friends, had some great birthdays, had many unforgettable days – some happy, some sad, some embarrassing, some funny… but this thing that happened recently was very special. It was a birthday surprise that we had planned for two of our friends whose birthdays fall within a week – Ishani's on 14th April and Jayant's on 21st April.

I had thought of writing this blog a couple of days back (after reading Jayant’s) but now that I’ve read Amiya’s, I know for sure that I won’t be able to match up to hers and you guys will also get bored reading the same details again. But I do have to mention all of it again if I am to write this post, so I thought I’d write it slightly differently. I’ll go gift-wise, from the initial conception via the changes, to the final thing.

It all started on the evening of the 9th day of April, 2007, when Amiya messaged: “Should we do something for Ishani’s (and Jay’s too) birthday, on the 12th? The basic plan is to give her a surprise a coupla days before her birthday, so that she least expects it.”

1) The Truffle (for I and J): We could put a cake on Neha Steps which Ishani would open. Neha and Amiya furthered the discussion and they decided to include Jayant into the surprise getters list. The cake would now read ‘To Ishani and Jayant’. One discussion later (between Amiya and me), we decided to have 2 cakes instead of just 1. The first would go as planed (for Ishani) and Jay’s cake would come in later after Ishani’s cake cutting was over. How, was still not decided, but it all fit later after mutual agreements.
2) The eye-jabbed doll (for J): When Amiya suggested we give gifts with memories attached to them, instead of normal everyday gifts, this was the first thing that came to her mind. (You must have already read about this doll’s history in Jay’s blog) Now finding the appropriate doll was difficult. Shop One had small girl dolls in sets of 6, Shop Two had huge ones and Shop Three had nothing but Barbies. So we went back to Shop One and picked up one doll, thinking we would cut off its hair to make it a guy. But one of its chotis kept standing! We found it so funny, we decided to keep it as it was. The next problem was the eye jabbing part. Ami thought it too gross so the joy fell on me. But every time I jabbed it with a pencil, the head would sink in, so at the last minute, we improvised and I jabbed it with a pin!
3) Mirchi earrings (for I): No one seemed to have any mirchi earrings as they were passé, each and every shop we went to tried to pass off horns as mirchis. We realized that silver earrings would be better (as anything else would hurt Ishani’s ears) so we went to Harry’s favourite shop. Much to our disappointment the shop guy said, “phool aur jaanwar toh aate hain, par sabziyan aani shuroo nahi hui”. SO we picked up a cute pair of feet for her.
4) Matrix goggles (for J): To commemorate the Matrix sun glasses that Jay had taken along with him to Goa and which were the butt of many a joke, we decided to get some cheap roadside shades for him for his next Goa trip. First we went to the most obvious place, the gubbare wala, who promptly turned us down. We actually found what we were looking for in the least expected place, a proper shop selling clothes & bangles…. and cheap roadside shades, hanging gloriously outside the shop in all their sparkling colours. (You all know what the gubbare wala and the shopkeeper said, really funny, by the way)
5) The killer ball (for I): Finding this one was probably the easiest. We just had to buy a handkerchief and knot it up.
6) Casablanca (for J): We were thinking of giving him some movie, the Godfather trilogy topping the list. But it was proving impossible to find, so according to his blog, we bought him Casablanca instead, which was also on his Most Wanted List.
7) Idea I-card (for I): Amiya had recently bought an Idea I-card from Kamla Nagar, which gave her 1500 free messages and a lot of happiness. We wanted to give Ishani the same happiness, so bought one for her as well.
8) The bull locket (for J): This was an impulse buy. We hadn’t planned for it. Looking for earrings and rings at different accessory walas, I just happened to glance at a locket with a bull engraved on it. We bought it immediately for the Bull we know.
9) A wallet (for I): Keeping in mind Ishani’s pure love for money and the fact that she didn’t have a wallet, we decided to give her one with chillad or fake notes in it. Ultimately, however, we gave her just a wallet because we couldn’t find any fake notes! This is one gift for which we looked in the maximum shops, from the hi-fi ones to the roadside walas. We finally settled for a cute one which we hoped she would like.
10) A mug (for J): Neha had bought this one sometime back and had it lying around at her place. She thought it would be perfect for the coffee/tea lover in Jay, so she just got it.
11) An MB (for I): Both Amiya and Neha almost simultaneously conjured up the idea to give Ishani an MB because she loves them. A gift for the romantic in her. Neha got it from her place.
12) The Kite Runner, by Khalid Hosseini (for J): Amiya had been raving about this book (although she still hasn’t read it!) Whenever we crossed a bookstore, she would pause and say she wanted to read it. So we decided to give it to Jay as Ami had heard lot of good things about it. To find out if Jayant had read it or not, Ami messaged him that she’d just finished reading it and that it was amazing. She promptly got the reply she wanted, Jay saying he’d like to read it too!
13) The ring (for I): Everyone already knows the IITF story. So there we were, at an accessory shop when I kidded that we should maybe steal the ring to make the gift more authentic. What I didn’t expect was to be taken seriously and Ami executed the perfect ring theft. She quietly picked the prettiest of the lot and snuck it in my pocket, while I kept the shopkeeper distracted.
14) The murder kit (for J): Sitting in Barista, during one of our brain-storming sessions, Amiya remarked that Jay had said, in his 2026 post, that he wanted to commit the perfect murder. So I said why not give him a murder kit to commit his perfect crime. It would include a pair of gloves (not to leave fingerprints), a torch (for light), a knife (for Jay to jab his victim with) and a handkerchief (to wipe away all his DNA traces). Now all we had to do was look for these things. I got the torch from my place, the knife and handkerchief we found at some shop, while we asked around a lot for gloves before settling for the best ones.
PS @ Jay: Even I have been fascinated by the idea of a perfect murder, if there is one. Even I might wanna commit one someday. :D :D :D :D
15) The essential Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (for I): One of Ishani’s favourite comics, it had to feature on her list of gifts. Since we didn’t have a store in K Nags where we could buy a coffee table book, Tarun was given the responsibility of buying it from the Teksons near his place.
16) A matchbox (for J): Jayant has a propensity to burn his hair, so we decided to help him in his cause. Of course, buying the match box was really not an issue.
17) Passes for Crossroads, all four nights (for I): Ishani collects passes of all the shows she attends and luckily for her, this time the theme for Crossroads was Dragons. Tarun remembered how desperately she’d wanted them and how she couldn’t get them. Our resident Dragon Girl HAD to have those, so we talked to some college hosteller and got her what she desired.
18) Bottle opener (for J): Well, to commemorate Jayant’s bottle opening spree in Goa, where he opened 6 out of 7 bottles of Breezers with his teeth. Harry, having opened the remaining bottle, remembered this feat and we decided to give him a bottle opener so that he didn’t have to do that again and bleed from the gums.
19) A tattoo (for J): From the guy whom we stole the ring, we had earlier bought a tattoo for Jay because he wanted to get one in Goa and hadn’t been able to do so.
20) The limerick (for J): Amiya decided that she would write one limerick each for Ishani and Jayant. And we set out thinking of ideas on which she could write. She found a theme for Jay pretty quick but Ishani’s is still in the making. And Jay’s limerick can be read on his blog.


So that was how all the gifts came about and were worked upon. How we finally decided everything is now out in the open. For all those who want to give someone a surprise, learn by heart is all I can tell you!

And I wanna give a big thanks to Ishani and Jayant for being soooo thick and not understanding anything. Even when things were happening under your noses, you guys didn’t get it. I also want to thank the others, all the contributors, all those who helped out and gave their valuable suggestions.

I think I enjoy giving surprises more than getting them. The feeling I had, looking at Jayant and Ishani’s happy faces in Momo King, was far better than anything else!
I love you guys. Happy Birthday, Ishani and Jayant! :)

So that’s it. That was my first post! Hope you liked it. I know it’s not a great work of art, but please be nice!! Also forgive the fact that all this has already been talked about and that you knew most of the stuff already!
I hope I continue writing on this space. See ya later. Cheers!