El Plano del Pachydermo
Do you have friends who are totally, totally on a different wavelength?
Sure you guys get along just fine. But sometimes conversations tend to get bizarre very soon. I don’t mean different wavelengths in the sense that you work in consumer banking and they work in investment banking. No I am talking about the situation where you work in consumer banking and they work in mixed media impressionist sculpture or something.
Let me explain.
There is this dear friend who is the highly creative advertising-media-design type who does a LOT of work for JAM Magazine. She is quite the brimful of ideas. And I mean ALL the time. Now these advertising types have brains that work at a completely different level, (electron orbit?), compared to the regular moderately imaginative brain that I have.
When you ask them for advice or inputs on things you do so expecting an avalanche of creativity to be let loose. It’s as if they just wake up in the morning, spend an hour thinking up a few hundred creative trains of thought, and then spend the rest of the day just launching them at the least suspecting MBA types who still can’t get over the genius of VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP.
Question in office: “How do we give the magazine a new look?”
Regular Sidin answer: “Let’s get a new font, increase the visuals and jazz up the cover a bit!”
Arty Lady’s answer: “Let’s chop the magazine to a square, punch a hole down the centre, print text down the diagonal and string it up at newsstands.”
At the time you try to hold a straight face while wondering what substance makes the brain works that way. But most of the time you envy the insane coolness of their ideas.
So yesterday evening I am sitting hunched over the laptop wondering what to get the wife on the soon-to-be-here first wedding anniversary.
While I may be tall, dark, handsome, have immaculate chest hair and nearly odourless sweat, gifting has never been a strength of mine. I suck at it. And when it comes to gifting women I take that sucking to plunging depths. So, in a moment of weakness, I asked Arty Lady for a anniversary surprise idea.
The mystery is this. She doesn’t even pause to think. It’s as if her brains has ideas for any possible scenario just cached in somewhere. Without as much as a pause to suck in air she launches into the description of a plan unlike any I have heard before:
“Sidin what you do is this. First I will give you the number of a friend. He is a broker for elephants and other trained animals. You book a nice big elephant for your anniversary day. You then rent a good Indian prince type Sherwani. You dress up, take the elephant, go to her office and wait with the animal till she comes outside after work. Then you pick her up and begin a slow yet extremely regal elephant ride to South Mumbai. On the way you can stop at a cafe or something and share a coffee of some kind. Leave the elephant prominently outside. You must have booked a table at the TAJ for dinner obviously. Then you take the animal right upto the entrance of the TAJ. The valet’s face! The idea is to give the woman an experience she will never ever forget for the rest of her life. Awesome no?”
I paused for a second in order to retract chin and a lion’s share of tongue from the floor.
“Yes. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. Elephant. Awesome. Very good. Give me that bottle of water please…”
“What were you planning Sid?”
“Handbag…”
p.s. Still open to outstandingly creative ideas that do not involve large creatures that can tenderize you for timepass.
extremely hilarious!!cheers to the arty lady..
1. Handwritten greeting card with pencil-sketch portrait of wife. Now I do realize that drawing women can be tricky, therefore a blank face with the text (Too beautiful for this poor artist to draw) written in the place where the nose, eyes and mouth would normally go.
2. Download romantic hindi/malayalam song karaoke version and sing/record with your voice. If one is a decent singer, great, and if one isnt, the laughter alone will be worth it.
3. locate old cardboard box that once held a TV (atleast 29 inches) and pack yourself in, get it giftwrapped and have it delivered by DHL truck to your house. If you are in reasonably fit, being in your birthday suit might not be a bad idea as well
4. Since you do have, shall we call it, the gift of the pen, write a superheroine short story starring your wife, get it published like an actual book and gift it to her
I would love to hear what the Lady Missus has to say about this surprise !!
Make a crossword with clues that only she can know the answer too. But the materialistic gift better be REALLY good then.
2. Down: What did you throw at me due to 1 across?
LOL, elephant indeed!!!
Imagine the talk of the town(specifically that part of the town that houses her work place and which she will naturally mind the most) the next morning
Sidin Saar, taking creativity to such high levels can be exteremely injurious to one’s health
When lost, stick to regular stuff - flowers/chocolates/handbags/diamonds. If not happy, she will at least not be provoked to reach out for the regular domestic “tools” if you know what I mean… I would personally hate it if my husby thinks of such “special” ideas on any of the special days…
A very pertinent question I HAVE to ask here - Is this creative genius friend of yours married/engaged/seeing someone? :O
The creative genius just got married a few days ago. And very happily too! To some other ad firm types. Imagine the conversations…
Lol
… worse is … Imagine the anniversary gifts they must be giving to each other …. 
hmmm lets see, from a woman’s point of view :
1. greeting cards - you cheapo! I married you cos you are from the IIMA, I expect more
2. Perfume - damn you, so you are telling me I stink?
3. Books - okay, so now you are saying Im not well read?
4. Laptop - so, you want me to slog the night away working on excel sheets while you snore?
5. Stuff Toy - Awwww, chooo cuteeeeee
Ok that last thing was for me only.
I cld still think of lots, but most women stop at stuff toys, do lemme know if you need more ideas though
BTW awesome rediff post there yeaaa!!!
ppssstt….isn’t wifey reading all this?? What’s the use then?
Tch tch…..
Great idea, riding on an elephant in South Bombay traffic. I see I misunderstood. Obviously, you are planning a dinner at Taj for her birthday NEXT year.
since u shot down appu, looks like camel or horse ride won’t interest u too
hmm.
since wifey might be reading all of this, no surprise will be a surprise. stick to the basics and go with cake/chocolate/greetingcard/soft-toy/candle-lit dinner(not at home)/self-cooked dinner(if u can cook to save your life:).
No seriously I have this excellent pasta salad with a secret curd and mustard sauce. Half decent chocolate cake. And many wonderful things with a couple of eggs and a can of tuna.
Damn, I have to bookmark this page for my future husband. I guess I’m in the minority here.
But if you think the Missus isn’t into that kind of thing and a handbag is your budget (I sincerely hope it wasn’t going to come from the discount bin someplace), then you’ve come to the right person. Or the right person has come to you. basically, I mean I’m the answer to your problems. Ok, not in that way…. let me just explain!
DO NOT buy her a stuffed toy or assorted dustcatchers unless it is deeply meaningful in some way (if she fondly calls you rabbit at home, then buy her a stuffed rabbit - or if she prefers to sleep clutching a teddy rather than you, then… well, in that case you’d be better off burning her teddies, wouldn’t you?).
Convince her instead to take a day off work (you freelance, so no problem there) and don’t let her say it can wait till the weekend. You HAVE to play hooky! Book a table for two somewhere far enough that you have to drive there, book a chauffered car (they must have a limo service in Bbay) and take her out in style. You could alternatively make this into a picnic.
If you’re into photography, take a camera along and take pics which you can later make into a flipbook or album or frame and hang in your house or whatever. If you’re camera challenged and easily distracted, leave this alone.
basically, spend a day doing nothing together, somewhere other than at home. Affordable but romantic.
Okay, now I’m off to find a life. Happy anniversary!
YOU LIKED THE ELEPHANT IDEA?! Well I will email you the trainer details right away.
i think u should try baking a chocolate cake yourself (try not burning it) and surprising her with that
.. ofcourse, that’s just one part of it .. the other part is picnic lunch in one of the gardens in mumbai (i am not aware of the current levels of cleanlines in mumbai but is Hanging Garden good enough??) .. and ofcourse the last but not the least .. a diamond necklace/pendant/ring/earrings (if she’s fond of jewellery - and before u say which girl isn’t, trust me, there are more than u can imagine)
or, as someone mentioned, spend a whole day with her doing nothing
(or maybe do some chores at home and watch her fav.TV serials with her n try NOT to laugh while u watch them ;P )
or, i think she would luuurvve a nice n long body massage, masseur Sidin
I make a good chocolate cake by the way.
Doing nothing is the official family timepass. We are outstanding at it. Only bested by the BMC.
I can see you are already getting a lot of ideas on what to buy. Here are some ideas on what not to buy
1. Kitchen appliances
2. Cleaning products
3. Mouthwash
4. Deodorants
Can anyone add to this list?
5. hair remover/shaver
5. Gift cards to weight loss programs
Hand written Greeting Card !
Also rack your brains for some little thing she has always wanted but has never bought it. Then go buy her that
Buy her a nice HONDA ACCORD miniature
lemme be honest
i was kinda very very dissappointed with the way in which this blog was going after the highs it had taken me to in the past
i guess everybody keeps expecting ‘the best’ and anything less from sidin wud be looked upon as a letdown
personally i think the one unique thing about this blog is the ability of the author to make a guy looking at his screen; no matter what part of the globe he is at nor what time of the day it is nor how many cubicles away his boss is filling his annual performance appraisal form, to launch into an uncontrollable fit of hysterical laughter!
well hats off to ya sidin, u did it yet again with this post
well some of the others were a little too long and by the time we got to the paragraph where u had positioned a very cleverly written piece of humour, u wud have tired us out
hope this is going to be the comeback piece!
cheers!
PS: we r all waiting for ur book…
Thanks for dropping in. And thanks for stopping to chat a bit on the meebo thing too. Material tends to come in waves. So I guess the blog will ebb and flow. Please to continuously keep the faith.
Book updates in a week or so.
What is this book thing? Would love to read the book.
haha man!!! outrageous ! uh is that who I think it is ?
Bloody ridiculous! Loved it! Hope you went with the elephant and not the handbag!!
PS: Happy soon-to-be Anniv!
Actually no.
A trip to Jaisalmer is in the offing though… But not a word to her about it.
erm… is the blog off limits to the wife?!
*brainwave*
How about naming the site Domain Missus for your Anniversary?
Or maybe you can gift a separate domain for her where she can pen down her writings……will be fun to read ‘Whatay’ and then hop over to ‘The Missus of the Whatay Guy’
*hoping that the creative-arty-lady reads moi ideas and spots a future genius*
The Domain Missus idea is sweet too. Now why didn’t I think of that?
Ahh….that might be answered in a future post, I suppose!
How about spending the anniversary on an Igloo?
The Delhi-ite in her would love it. My asthma would kick in within nanoseconds and I would be dead but well preserved by permafrost inside fifteen minutes.
Hilarious man! After that kinda idea, I guess anything else would pale in comparison..unless of course you were gifting Abhishek Bacchan to her.
hmmm……..keep it normal, else you would’ve to outdo yourself every year!!
I support the handbag idea. Can’t go wrong with it. Did it three weeks ago myself… but that was for the third anniv… the first one is thought to be special. Can’t say why… maybe a good diamondy thing wrapped in lots of larger gifts may work. I assume you have a large-ish budget since you are entertaining elephants and such!
Oddly profound. Utterly unattainable.
gift for the wide oye hoye
gift for anniversary oye hoye
Tomorrow be first anniv for me, and i HOPE to hell the husband doesnt know ur arty friend aiyo. Pachyderm would be a great idea if it wasnt for the minor matter of clambering up and down on it AND the fact that i probabaly wouldnt be able to show my face again in office (which might be not be such a bad thing come to think of it)
(btw if you have figgered out what ur missus is gifting u , pliss to drop me a mail!)
suggestions for gifts …hmmm… how about you make a list of 365 things you do that piss her off and a resolution that you will not do them till the next anniv? (maybe 12 things more managable!)
handbags - Men never understand bags. Or shoes.
So really nothing better than a handbag for her to carry it in no?
Sidin,
Once I searched on the Net for something called “roomful of flowers”. There are guys in Bombay who do it I think. Or call up a florist or tell them u want some 8-10 bouquets and flower arrangements.
Easy. 5k or so. Romantic. And mostly you dont have to move ur butt to get it done, the flower guys do it.
Hope it helps.
Easier idea - photobook from picsquare.com with post-marriage pics!
Mathiyo saare?
Oru achayan.
But the roomful of flowers is intriguing.
1. Large (think life-size) wildcats (stuffed variety of course)
2. Some kind of branded jewellery (go for exotic stones, since they are colourful as well as economically priced….and women somehow still love them)
Good luck
2. Good idea. But then it has to be earings no? Ring sizes are messy messy messy…
Sidin,
In advance- happy anniversary.
if u want to take her somewhere:
Th most wonderful place to go would be a treehouse in Vythiri. Cost for one night 2 years back was 9,000/- but it was awesome. This banyan tree on top of this hill surrounded by forest cover, the mist, the traditional coir flooring, the shower, everything is perfect.
if u want to spend it home:
Any married woman above 35 will swear the one THING THAT TURNS HER ON is to have hubby in the kitchen cooking dinner for her. Sidin , wear the apron, buy some pasta, spill tomato sauce on the apron, fumble around, light a candle on the dinner table - by the way aromatic candles- dim the lights, play dire straits …
Vythiri? Ah! But a sinister plan to trip over to Jaisalmer takes shape. Not a word to anyone though…
I gave her a 30 GB Video ipod. I use that as a USB drive to hide all the porn that I downloaded off the internet. No matter however hard she searches she will not find it. BTW of late she is complaining of lack of space. I may have to upgrade next year
gotta go unfortunately porn does not download itself.
Instead of the pachyderm I would have said a bounding, happy tiger with an exquisite diamond necklace round its neck, to be unhooked and handed over to the doting wife by the fearless and brave hearted husband. Sigh! this is what fairytales are made of! Go for it Sidin!
On a more serious note… try a surprise dinner and a quiet walk during you which you hand over something that you know shes wanted for a while. Much more special than a fancy high flung thing are the simple joys of quality time spent together.
First forget your anniversary….or pretend to….and stay at home that day…..you’ll have her raging but she won’t say anything cause she wants to see how long you take before you remember…..
Then anything you do will make her go crazy, cause its a surprise in any case….
Best thing to gift her?
A purse….small one….with lotsa cash in it….to buy whatever she wants
I dont think so, I bet she will feel happy
wicked
2007-12-13 15:51:27
I gave her a 30 GB Video ipod.
Wicked gave your wife a 30 GB ipod?
Sidin, first off, thanks for stopping by my blog, and pointing me to the Arthur C Clarke short story!
The Domain Missus is a great idea, but to me, it sounds very much like WORK
The content will not write itself, right?
How about a gift card to a spa? Really, nothing else says “pampering” so much as a spa
Btw the number of women commenters on this blog post is INSANE!
Warm and fuzzy week on the blog I think…
Spa owner in Pune, eh? Pls to tell… very interesting. I mean. Good to know spas around the city, eh? Just to pop in and out once in a year!
a baby
Hmm… Interesting
‘unexpected gift at an unexpected time’ is the secret!
fill the house with roses and candles… and by fill i mean ‘fill literally. there should be less air and more of roses and candles’…
let the lady enter and get surprised… cook ur special dinner… put on some nice music… and say the words!
someone up there said ‘a baby’! hahaha! I’m imagining one bawling, kicking, screaming lil one with a lil bow on the head!
yeah cook up big fancy dinner (try not to burn the food, failing which, takeaway), a handwritten card/letter perhaps (try NOT to be funny, failing which google for poetry :P) and once that’s done…the mood’s set…to go clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes…
Happy anniversary, in advance…