Priceless !

 

This is the story of how I made my dad have this below expression on his face. This was one of the most priceless moments in my life. If you're wondering why my dad had this expression, read on.. :-)

As you can see from the picture above, this has something to do making my parents' day a little extra special. That's true - This is the story of how I threw my parents a special surprise 25th wedding anniversary party. Unlike some of my other posts, this post won't be that long. (at least I hope so coz a lot of it will be photos). Ok. So let's jump straight into the content. This has 3 parts - First I'll set the context, then talk about the planning involved and finally show you some videos of how it was executed. Let's get started :)

Context

 It's December 2011. I finished my Engineering a few months back and had started working at ITC from June. They were paying me a lot of money and after the first few months, I got bored of spending it heavily on clothes, fancy food and parties and all that. So as you can imagine, I wanted to do something a little more meaningful with what I earned. I realized that my parents' 25th wedding anniversary is just over a month away. I felt like throwing them a surprise party. For me, the highlight and challenge was to make it a surprise party and not just any party. Especially for my parents, things like surprise parties are known only through fancy movies, and that too if they take the effort to watch such a movie. I was working in a factory in the outskirts of Chennai and I had sufficient time to plan for the party, even though I wasn't at home.

Planning Phase

My younger brother (Jacob also called Chicku (used henceforth) ) was doing his engineering. I checked with him. He was interested in this as well. I was thinking of making him do whatever work was required to be done at home to ensure everything works as per plan. But he had exams during the week before the party date I had planned. So it was not right for me to expect him to put in effort. Now, the onus was completely on me to get the job done. Next few weeks, I was brainstorming with myself on how the party should be and below I have captured few of the points:

1. On-the-Ground Support:

I realized that there's no way on earth I can do everything sitting in Chennai. I needed help at Kochi. So contacted 2 of my close elder cousin brothers. Bought them into the idea. They agreed to help me in whatever way possible to ensure that this party turns out to be a success. Most of the planning that I did was just 2 weeks before the party. The other points I remember have been captured below

2. Venue, Date and Food :

One of my uncles owns a few hotels in Kerala. Most of our family functions happen there. So, through my cousin brothers - after secretly getting information from them that my parents will be in Kochi on the target date, I booked the hotel. My dad had good taste in food and he used to help out in setting the food menus for the weddings of my relatives. My cousins were aware of my dad's and mom's tastes. They took the onus of deciding the menu and communicating the same to the hotel.  They asked me for budget constraints - I was very clear that spending money on this made more sense than anything for myself. So I set no constraints and decided to be super generous with this - The Venue, date and food was decided.

3. Anniversary Video:

During the party, I wanted to show a video having pictures from the 25 years they've been together. Unlike these days, where everything is available in digital, the 90's was a little different. And I had to get access to the hard copy of the pictures and convert into digital format before creating the video. Enter Chicku - He agrees to go home 3 weeks before the party on a weekend, steal the photo albums without my parents knowing it, take all the copies to the studio close to our house, where we've been going to ever since I can remember. And kudos to him for having executed that brilliantly. He then managed to send me the photos through a cd.

Ok. Now, I have got hold of the photos. But I know absolutely nothing about creating a video, the software required or any of those design fundaes. What do I do? Hmm.. Enter Faheem - one of the best designers that I've come across in my life. I had completed my Btech (4 yr course) and had a lot of friends in Dual Degree doing their final year at IITM. I used to go there regularly on weekends after I was posted in Chennai outskirts by ITC. Faheem was there. Asked him for help. He agreed. He had his own set of acads load to handle, but I'm extremely grateful to him for helping me out with this despite all this other commitmentts. I told him my video design requirement and we created the video, with Faheem doing the entire software work. 

Below is the video that we created and showcased during the function. (Disclaimer: We did not get a lot of time to work on the video. So the first 3 mins goes a little fast and you might not be able to get all the images. Post 3 minutes, we, the kids come in. But do watch it. Slightly long video - But awesome work by Faheem - Thanks bro :)  )  You can either watch the video now or finish the entire post, come back and watch the video.

 4. Party Invitation:

 A surprise party is not something very common in my family. So, when I was sending out invites for the party, I had to convince my relatives to take it seriously and not divulge the information to my parents in anyway. So again, I knew how the invite should look like but had no design experience. Faheem enters again. Creates a beautiful invite for the party.

The name Achu given in the invite is what I'm called at home

5. Guest list and invites:

My dad has 4 brothers and 5 sisters. My mom has a brother and a sister. All these uncles and aunties of mine have kids and many of them even have grandkids. There were a few close friends of my parents as well. I created the guest list and all-in-all, the list was around 100 people. And the challenge was to ensure that no information regarding the party reaches my parents. Considering that so many people would be involved, I had to handle this very carefully, because with each extra person being invited, the chances of it reaching my dad increases, as he interacts with a lot of them on a daily basis. So I played safe. I invited all of them only 2 days before the event. Called all my uncles and aunties personally and really emphasized on the surprise factor and additionally sent them the invite shown above through mail. All of them agreed to play along. There were 2 specific points to be noted here:

5.a My dad's dad was this extremely enthusiastic person who cannot keep such news to himself. He was like a full time radio transmitting info between all his kids. To get him to the venue on the day of the event - I knew would be difficult. So, from my dad's native place - we asked one of my uncles to bring my grandfather without telling him why he is being taken to Kochi. I was told later that he kept on asking "Why are we going to Kochi today?" on the car again and again and my uncle somehow managed not to divulge the info to him.

5.b My mom's only brother was supposed to go to Dubai from Chennai. He agreed to come to Kochi along with my aunt and go to Dubai a day later. Not having him would have been a big loss. Again, I appreciate him taking all the effort for this party.

Altogether, all my relatives were really enthusiastic for making the event a grand success.

.

6. Flight booking

The event was on a Saturday and I had taken a leave that day, which my parents were not aware of. Now I had to travel from Chennai to Kochi. The thing with me was that since I had started working only a few months back, my dad was taking care of all my finances (He's a CA). That made my life easy for me. But the flip side of it was that in case any major transaction happens either through my credit card or through net banking, my dad's office assistant would notice and pass the accounts entry and there's a chance that my dad would come to know. So I had to book my flight with the help of a friend's card.

The only other consideration that I had while booking the flight was that during my flying time, my parents should not call me - In case they call and the response that the phone is switched off comes in Malayalam, my parents will have a doubt. So I booked a Saturday early morning fight to reach Kochi. Reached in the morning. Stayed at my cousin's flat which was next to the building where my parents were staying. And they had no clue that I was there. (Later, a friend of mine told me that even if my phone is off, the network operator will not know where the location is anyway, so the response even if my parents had called would've been in Tamil and not Malayalam since they detect the last known location and respond - I didn't think of such an obvious thing - but hey, that was a new learning for me :P )  

7. Biggest challenge - Getting them to the venue all dressed up without revealing the surprise

This was probably the most difficult task. I and my cousin brothers were on conference calls all throughout the week before the party and most of what we discussed was how to get my parents to the venue, well dressed and without informing them anything about the party. It was indeed a challenge. We brainstormed and came up with multiple ideas. I'll just state the final executed idea -

A day before the party, we requested and convinced a family friend of ours who was involved with "Titan" to go to my parents' place and invite them for a Titan launch. We asked him to make up a fake story about this fake launch and that they wanted some good families to attend the function. We created a fake invitation card for the same. And he pulled it off brilliantly. I knew my parents would initially say no to such events. But credit to him - Just 1 day before the party he went to our place and completely convinced them to come to the fake Titan launch event. This would have ensured that they would dress up well.

8. Last minute arrangements

8.a Welcome Screen at Reception - On the welcome screen at the hotel reception, the list of events for the day would be given. This had to be changed to "Titan launch" something. When I asked the Hotel folks to do this, I was just hoping that no actual Titan folks come to the hotel that day and come to our function. ;)

8.b Around 2 hours before event, I was getting some arrangements done for the party. I suddenly get a call from my dad. I was like "Man... Did he see me somewhere...All this effort and has the surprise been spoiled" I took the call anyway, but they just wanted to check how I'm doing and why I'm not going to Chennai city for the weekend. Little did they know at that stage about what's going to hit them shortly. I acted well, lied and told them I'm working hard in the factory and they completely bought it.

8.c The event was supposed to start at around 7 ish. Guests had come in by then. But we could not really push my parents to come at that time, because from their perspective, they can come whenever they want. It is some Titan event. There's no need for any hurry. Suddenly, it struck me. There are a lot of cars which belong to my relatives that are parked at the hotel parking area. And if my parents see so many cars, they'll definitely notice it and again, might spoil the full surprise thingy. So, I told the guests and all the youngsters in the crowd were on it. At full speed, everyone runs downstairs and shift all the cars to safe non-noticeable locations. Woof ! That was close.

8.d There were a lot of other arrangements made like garlands, bouquets, our official family Emcee - a wonderful brother in-law of mine. All my aunties and cousin sisters who came that day were made to stand on either sides of the aisle with diyas in their hands. Gifts were arranged for Appa and Amma. Guitar was arranged in case I and Chicku decide to perform, which we did. And a lot more was done.  A screenshot of the itinerary for the party is shown below. Don't worry if you can't read it. It is just shown to give a flavor of the fact that I was super obsessed with this that I used excel excessively for this.

Execution Phase

 After all this planning, finally my parents arrive at the venue around 8 pm. The guests are waiting inside the hall. My parents have absolutely no clue what is about to hit them. They think that it will be this Titan event and then my dad opens the door. Click on this below video to see their reaction. Again, they have absolutely no idea that I'm in charge of all this and the fact that I'm even there in that venue. You can see my dad's reaction when he sees me a few mins into the video. Oh, that moment for me was Priceless. This entire party thing was priceless. Anyway, watch the video. Only thing is the communication is in Malayalam. I've given English subtitles wherever possible. So, don't worry about it too much. Just watch the video and enjoy their reactions. You'll enjoy it. Trust me :)(please turn subtitles on for both the videos)

 My mom apparently kept on asking "What happened to that other function? Is it not happening here?" It took her some time to sink in the fact that the entire thing was a surprise party for them. The next video is my welcome speech. Was just a very casual speech.

It was all good. Parents had a good time. Relatives had fun. I was supremely satisfied. Except that 2 days after the party, my mom/dad calls me and tells me "See.. Achu... So, this XYZ aunty has come up with a marriage proposal for you with this ABC girl..." They looked at it from the sense that - Considering the fact that at that young age of 22, I pulled off something like this, I was apparently very capable and was in a stage to run a family. I was like "No way" Never thought the entire thing could backfire this way. Lol.. I conveniently and smartly diverted that proposal away and ever since,  whenever I have such ideas, I give it a second thought before going ahead with it and even if I do it, I ensure that such marriage type potential attacks are prevented...... ;)

(Don't forget to see the video we had created, if you're interested. It can be found under the Planning phase. If you're interested to see more photos of the party, you can check them out on my fb photo albums. )

Why did I suddenly decide to put this post up?

 So 3 years after I threw my parents this party, when I was doing my MBA Term 4 - I was doing this course called PVGCO (Personal Values Goals and Career Options) - I loved the course because it has a lot to deal with psychology and I just love that subject - Psychology and Math are my favorite subjects btw. So as a part of this course, we had to do an exercise which involved each student having to collect data/feedback from the students' closed ones/friends/ex-colleagues etc. and each feedback should contain 3 stories of how the student has influenced that person in a positive way. The data is collected and certain analysis is conducted. Now, I had requested my dad to write 3 stories where he felt I had a positive influence on him. He responded. I'm not including his entire response. The 3rd story he had mentioned was regarding this surprise party (Please find below). For me, just reading the response mail from my dad was more than enough return on the time investment on this course PVGCO. (Even otherwise, the course was kickass)

Ok. Now why have I put the appreciation message from my dad on this page ? Is it to show off my capability and organizing skills to throw such a party? No - Not at all. I know I have my own set of skills and abilities and I'm more than content with knowing that.

The reason why I'm making this appreciation message public is - Suppose X readers read this post. And suppose even just 1 person out of X gets influenced by this post & this appreciation message to the extent that that person is inspired to make a few seconds/minutes/ hours/days of that person's closed ones or anyone else for that matter a little extra special - that will be a priceless moment for that person.

And for me - Being the potential influencer for creating such a moment is indeed Priceless ! :-)

                                              "Coz Zingadi Na Milegi Dobaara"