Surprise parties!

Who doesn’t love surprise parties?

Yet, if the only way to celebrate a birthday is by throwing a surprise party – at some point, not having one becomes the surprise!

I am a mother of two, and when my first born went to a playschool nearby 4 years ago, I made friends with other first time mothers. Over these years, the group has grown from 4 to 12. This gang of girls has been meeting up for weekend dinners, weekday brunches, weekend lunches. More recently, it has been meeting up, without fail, to give a birthday surprise to one of the girls.

There is a specific pattern to this now... we all talk about it when we meet, or through sms, or Facebook message and fix a time (maybe a date too, when the person is not in town on the birthday). Then we conspire with the husband of the birthday girl to ensure she is available to be surprised. We also pick up balloons, flowers, cake, gifts and generally walk in on her and catch her unawares. We then take photographs and enjoy the moment for a few more days after that.

Our first one was in June last year. All day we called Shreya, wished her, and wanted to know what plans she had for the evening, and she only said, she was going to be tired and would just want to hit the sack. She returned at 9:00pm and the nice husband made excuses and ensured she didn’t go to bed until 10:00pm. The gang of girls, assembled at her door, with big balloons, a lit candle on the cake, camera on, and when she answered the door, she was not surprised at all! The poor girl was shocked to hear a loud happy birthday and ‘Surprise’ screamed into her ears.

The second one was mine. I share my birthday with Shreya’s daughter, so at the little one’s birthday party, there is one more cake for me, and apart from the mothers and kids, a father (my husband) also appears at closing time to celebrate mine. But last year, one mother pretended she needed my help to supervise her sleeping baby at 9:15am when she had to rush out for a doctor’s appointment. So I landed up at her place after sending my kids off to school, and she made me wait outside her house for ten mins, because she had stepped into the shower.  She finally opened the door to let me in, and I got that shocking ‘Surprise’ scream too. One of my most memorable birthdays, it felt so warm and lucky to have such lovely friends.

Next was Amrita’s. We all landed up outside her building at 9:15am when she had gone to drop off her child at school. The idea was to surprise her at the lobby when she returned, but one of us got delayed, so we had to sit with the cake, gift, balloons inside the car outside her building. We watched her walking into the building, peering into the car and driver’s face (whom she did recognize). We gave her 5 mins, and then went up to her place and gave her the surprise. I still don’t believe she really got one, having seen us downstairs already.

Preeti hasn’t updated her Facebook profile with her birthday. So we didn’t even know it came and went. We were all on Diwali vacation and couldn’t plan anything. But we ensured we walked in on her one morning when she was down with backpain and resting. She was on the phone giving a list to her grocer, and we screamed ‘Surprise’. Her mother was resting on the couch in the living room, and was completely oblivious to what was happening around, until she suddenly woke up to see 6 women having cake, giggling and talking loudly. I am sure we ended up giving her, her grocer and her mother a big surprise.

Meghna was pregnant with her 2^nd child, and was sitting at her window at 10am. She suddenly saw balloons bobbing towards her house, and realized what was coming her way. I am actually glad tahat she happened to see us, I wonder what impact a “Surprise” scream would have had on the baby. More than the surprise or the cake, I think what she enjoyed the most was the gift we gave her  -  a nice hand and foot massage at a nearby parlor.

Last night was Sujatha’s turn. We all decided to gang up at her place at 10pm and surprise her. But the Surprisers ended up being more surprised. 

The first surprise was when I didn’t find my friend at her pick up point. Then we landed up earlier than planned at a second friend’s place. When we were driving to the birthday girl’s place, a third  friend called us very sheepishly asking us why we hadn’t reached, since she had already sent Sujatha an sms saying “How was the surprise?” A fourth friend didn’t land up; we called her only to find that she was at home going to bed, since she had got the dates all wrong.

We finally went up to the birthday girl’s door and rang the bell. We were quite sure that she would  be waiting for us, thanks to the sms. Thankfully, she thought she misread some sms and didn’t know what was happening, so ignored it.

What a surprise it was, to see that she was actually surprised!!!!