How I Planned an Awesome Surprise Birthday Party for Akshat?

Have you ever wondered how to plan a surprise party for your husband? 

I have always... attempted to make people around me feel special and I try doing it in as many ways possible, but, planning a surprise has never been easy. It needs careful planning at every step, so as not to spoil the surprise. Trust me! You won’t be able to relax very much, with this type of party, especially when it’s for your spouse. But if you’re always up for an adventure (like me), you’ll definitely enjoy the process – as you experience the immense elation that comes from an artfully and, hopefully, successfully executed plan.

Even though my mind kept dreaming – could I really pull it off? I decided to not over think and give it a shot. There is no doubt that my husband was suspicious. I tried to fend off his questions - what time are you planning to be back home? Where are we going for the dinner tonight? Me wanting him to buy groceries on the way back home, even when we were going out for dinner, as per the fake plan ;-) (Did I mention I'm a terrible liar?)  But, even though it was challenging and wearing, the surprise at the end was totally worth it.

Later, most of my friends and colleagues kept asking me how I managed to plan all this on a weekday without missing office, so I thought of sharing a cheat sheet with y’all. ;) 

For a person who’s hosting a party, there are tons of things that need to be arranged before the party begins, especially if you want to make sure that everybody will remember the party for how awesome it was.  It does sound easy but besides the usual things that you have to take care of, such as the food and drinks, (that I prepared on the day of the party) there are a lot of other things that you should keep in mind. For me it was a four-step process that included: 

•    Sending out invitations and making sure everybody reaches on time

•    Decorating the house

•    Ordering an awesome cake that everyone loves and remembers

•    Food and Drinks – The menu that everyone loves

Invitations: This is where a surprise party can get tricky. How to invite? How many people? You don’t want to upset anyone but at the same time you can’t have too many people over. The smaller your party, the less likely someone will blab the surprise in advance. I decided to keep the guest list small and the invitation process pretty simple. I decided to invite friends and cousins who worked/ lived in and around Gurgaon so that they all turn up on time. But I made sure to tell everyone on the invitation that the event is a surprise party. I created a WhatsApp group and invited everyone through an e-invite, but that worked for me because Akshat was travelling for work and he couldn't check my phone, otherwise he loves to play games on my phone all the time. When he came back home on 10th and saw a password on my phone he was a bit suspicious but then I convinced him by saying that you always drain my battery so I’ve decided to put a password so you can’t play games anymore. ;-) 

Alternately, you can send out a text to invite people or make phone calls. I like to send out invitations so I designed an e-invitation on a ppt but you can always use apps/ websites like Canva, Smilebox etc for easy and pretty design options.

Here’s the invitation that I sent out:

Balloon Surprise:

Decorations can create an atmosphere that will break or your make your party. Now, depending on the theme of your party, there are lots of different things that you can consider as decorations, but one thing is for certain. Balloons!

So I decided to hire a balloon decoration service since I wanted to fill my entire living room with balloons and have photos hanging from balloons to create a chandelier over a table. You can contact Cherishx.com to replicate this for your party too.

Here’s how the décor looked:

Cake:

I personally feel that the importance of cake on a birthday should never be overlooked. Whether the birthday is to celebrate turning three or turning thirty three, there needs to be the ritual of cake, and for Akshat’s birthday I wanted to organise a cake that is special and unforgettable.

I decided to arrange a cake in the shape of a Bira Can seeing that Akshat is a Bira Fan. Thanks to the awesome baker that I have next door, this became an easy task on my list. Shruti (my cousin) and I decided to put all the other Bira cans around the cake. It was pretty funny that most of the guests did not recognize the cake and misunderstood it to be a large pack of Bira.

Here are some pictures of the cake:

In case you want to contact her for the cake you can visit her FB page: Cake in the Box (Jaya Agrawal). She can do a cake in any shape and flavour; she’s one of the best in town.

Food and Drinks:

Being a foodie myself I always make sure the food menu is something that everybody enjoys. Since most of my friends are chicken lovers I made sure there were enough chicken options on the menu. I love cooking so I decided to prepare everything myself, besides, even Akshat enjoys home cooked food over restaurant food. Accordingly, I decided to come home early on 11th just to cook his favourite meals. However, you can definitely order food from Swiggy, Zomato, Foodpanda etc. Not to forget, the drink of the day was, of course, Bira but I made sure there were scotch and other cocktails that everybody enjoys. I checked with each guest their drink preference in advance so that it could be arranged in time.

One piece of advice, you must prepare a music playlist in advance. You don’t want everyone going up and putting their phones in to play the next track. J

Thank you to everyone who made Akshat’s 33rd birthday so memorable. So all you who really want to know the secret to planning a truly awesome surprise party: - your willingness, coupled with sheer determination and of course wonderful friends who won’t ditch you and will turn up even on a weekday. J

I’m sure if you do this your husband will really appreciate your effort and will never forget the experience. All the best! ;-)

The End of My Roaring 20s is near!

This month I will be bidding farewell to my 20s – as I celebrate my 30th birthday. I’ve been reflecting on how I feel about this, about the number 30, this arbitrary age that seems to represent so much and inspires such a range of emotional responses. As my 30th birthday approaches, I look back and realise how much I have changed in this last decade. If you’ve met me in my early 20s you probably say that Archika is a chirpy and a bubbly girl, someone who speaks without thinking, always up to some pranks, love teasing others. Some people would even call me a freak who can drive anyone crazy!

But today if you ask my colleagues at work they would probably describe me as someone who’s calm, thinks a lot before speaking, reserved and not too social. Quite a contrasting viewpoint. But, I think it’s for the good. Though I try to be the same bubbly girl at home and with my close friends but I am definitely different from how I was a decade back.

It’s funny how back in my teens I used to dislike people who’d change personalities or behaviour with time, I would constantly tell myself that I will never change myself for my peers, family, people I love - I will always be the same. It’s an uncanny feeling when we realise how we all believe that who we are now is pretty much how we will be forever – even though we know that change is an inevitable part of life.

Life is a constant journey and we all change, mature and grow with time. But what changes us the most are our life experiences. Last 10 year were the most eventful years of my life, I started my professional journey, changed cities, jobs, met so many new people, made so many new friends, lost touch with some – some betrayed too. I took up some really challenging tasks, travelled around cities, countries, and got married last year...Phew! – certainly an eventful decade.  Although emotionally there were many ups and downs in my journey, but I am grateful for what I’ve learned up to this point and look forward to the lessons that await me, too.

I am sure my life ahead will be equally busy and eventful, but the difference will be that I will be emotionally stronger and much more mature. Life challenges might not affect me as much as it did in my early twenties. Today I am stronger and wiser and more comfortable in my own skin than I was in my early 20s, and I am certainly more confident than I was in my teens. 

No matter how many degrees we have or what kind of education we received, there are something that only life can teach us, and here are the lessons I’ve learned in my 20s:

The importance of forgiveness – Over the years I have learnt to forgive and move on. It’s not worth spending too much time on things that did not work for us in life or people who let us down.

Surround yourself with positive people - Negative people tend to bring us down and there’s so much energy that is drained, on the other side when we spend time with positive people we feel motivated, happy and light. There’s so much to learn from them.

A holistic view of success – The definition of success is not all about money and being popular, rather success to me is my constant growth, learning new things, understanding people around me, spending more time with family. To achieve a work-life balance is the mantra of success.

It’s not always about me – When I was in my early 20s I used to give so much importance to myself – my birthday, my career, my dress, my room etc. etc., that I became selfish to an extent. However, now I have started to shift my focus and perspectives outside of myself – learning to adapt and become a part of the bigger picture.

Learning to be more mindful of what I say and how I say it – Well I am still learning this, but I am definitely getting better.

Learning to appreciate my health - This is something I never thought about in my early 20s, but as I’m growing older I have started to understand that I am not invincible. I must focus and spend time taking care of my health as nobody else would do that for me.

Life doesn’t always turn out as planned – Finally, I’ve come to terms with this. Though It’s always good to plan but I feel we should never plan so much that when things don’t happen the way we anticipate them, we lose control. Most of the big things in life always turn out to be different from how we visualise them in our early 20s. And mostly it’s for the good. We don’t have the maturity to make big decisions in our early 20s. But we understand this only when we reach 30! (for some it may be 40 though) 

And it’s just the beginning…

~Millions of tiny moments creating our love story~

It’s been a month already, I whisper in his ears wishing him on our Monthsary early morning. And then I take a moment to reflect back and to relish those memories we created in last one month something that is really very special for both of us.

Not too long ago was the day when I was walking down the aisle in that bright Red outfit, my eyes on my Mr. Right. And there he was waiting for me to arrive with all the love and excitement in his heart – A moment that every girl wants to experience in her life when all eyes are set on her as she enters.

Marriage is not about that one day of happiness but it’s the beginning of a new and a happy life together. I do expect my marriage to be fulfilling, joyous, comforting and loving, but I’m not naive enough to believe there won’t be difficult days. In fact, I used to anticipate that every day before my marriage to the point I used to get overwhelmed, feeling nervous about many things, but that anxiety got settled with time when I spent a while with people who accepted me with love. 

Earlier, even the thought of staying with someone 24X7 used to worry me, I was so used to staying alone in Mumbai all these years that I loved my space, my solitude. But after spending a month with him I realized that being with someone every day is a little bit like that nice cup of tea every morning – I might have it every day, but I still enjoy it.

We did have our share of arguments too but what’s great about us is that we both listen, we forgive and move forward. He always tries to understand my perspective even though it contradicts his thoughts most of the times. Once we figured out that we could not change each other, we became free to celebrate ourselves as we are.

And yes we can talk, I think there has never been a time when I wanted to share my feelings and I refrained from communicating. Being in a communications business I do understand how important it is to talk. We talk about anything under the sun. Our topics of interest do differ but we are open to new topics and learnings. He has started taking interesting in psychology and I do watch sports (sometimes) with him. That seems like a good start to me.  :)

Most importantly I always have his back, the support he provides me is tremendous. Frankly I never expected my husband to be so helpful and supporting in every aspect of life. He surprises me every single day. He is so dependable that sometimes I fear that I’ll lose my independent streak that I developed in last 6 years. He has a habit of taking care of everything, something I enjoy most of the time…. Who doesn’t like to be pampered once in a while? :P 

This whole month has been quite exciting, full of emotions for both us…especially for me, trying to adjust to the new environment. I still miss Mumbai at times but then I see him and I realize that this is where I was meant to be. :)

There are a hundred paths you can take that are easier than getting married. But who wants easier? Life is an adventure and getting married is the biggest one! Sometimes scarier than jumping off the plane LOL

But believe me… It’s a hell of a ride! ;-)

Arranged marriages can be interesting too!

I never imagined that I would take this route to find my mate, but that’s what happened.

Being an independent girl living in Mumbai all alone, I always make my own decisions. 

And I believed that arranged marriage is an institution where your family make the decision for you. Something I was not at all comfortable with.

But as they say, “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”
So while I was busy running away from this institution I never thought I’ll fall straight into its lap. LOL

How we met?

Our families were in touch and they wanted us (me & Akshat) to have our first phone conversation so that we get to know each other. We both were trying to delay the process but after repeated reminders from his mom he had to make the first move. On July 19, he sent me a text message, wanted to talk to me and that’s how our first conversation began.

Though when he called I was expecting that we’ll have a small chat, maybe just introduce ourselves for now and speak in detail later but we connected instantly, both of us had so much to talk about and that’s how the two unfamiliar people became friends.

Our first meeting happened in Delhi on Aug 8, after 20 days. We both went to an Italian restaurant for lunch. I was a bit uncomfortable at first, maybe I was nervous. This whole arranged marriage format was not easy for me. I was twisting and twisting my bracelet in anxiety. He noticed my restlessness and made me feel comfortable in no time. That was the first time I felt he could be the one!

He offered me a ride back home, the drive was long, but I accepted the offer as I wanted to spend some more time with him. He had a small gift for me in the car, I liked the gesture. The drive was long, and I made it extra-long with my poor sense of direction. LOL Even though Delhi is my hometown, living in Mumbai for more than 5 years has made me forget all the routes. I made him drive in every corner of Delhi that day yet he was so calm and patient.

We reached home and he met my parents for the first time, they loved him too. Next day I met his mom and dad and by the time my sister was interrogating him on skype in the next room everything got finalised. Though we both knew this would happen but still it came to us as a surprise. Everything was happening so fast.

He came to see me at the airport again just to make sure I was happy and not freaking out. I really liked the fact that he was so caring and considerate.

I saw him standing outside the airport even after I got inside. He stood there, staring at me as I walk my way to the security check area. I could see love in his eyes for me. I knew in my heart that even though everything seems hasty, he is the guy for me.

Despite our geographic distances, we always feel connected to each other. I love the way he gives me my space and respects my independent and carefree attitude. I fell in love with him because of a million tiny things that he never knew he was doing.

Now I feel that arranged marriages are more interesting, the way you gradually learn about each other, discovering each others tiny little secrets, makes it more and more exciting. 

But the funny thing is that nobody believes it’s an arranged marriage, all my cousins, relatives and friends are confused. Even when we went to the jewellery store to buy our engagement rings they confidently assumed it’s a love marriage! 

And why not, of course, we both are in love. That’s exactly what everybody can see. :) :)

 We got engaged on December 12, 2015 and our wedding is on February 24, 2016.

Scary but worth it! - my first sykdiving experience

“Just keep your head back, eyes open, hold this shoulder strap while you jump and when I tap your shoulder release your hands, Kick my butt!” said my instructor

“Kick my butt?” Did I hear that right? I told myself

Logically and analytically, I knew what he meant that if I spread my legs instead of tightening up, then we wouldn’t be aerodynamic. But still in my gut, all I heard was OMG!!!

The Panini disaster

I was out for some media interactions with the Leadership team of NA and the CFO of my company. The interaction was getting delayed as the journalist was running late due to traffic, so we decided to have working lunch.

I asked my NA colleague (who’s an Italian American) to help me pick a sandwich from the menu. (Well I was just trying to be polite). So he suggested me a Chicken Panini sandwich, I didn't really know what it was, except for the fact I knew it should have some chicken in it. But still I decided to order the same.

Mumbai Diaries - I

I still remember that day- 24^th November 2010, my flight from Delhi to Mumbai landed at around 7 am in the morning. While it was bone-chilling cold in Delhi at that time, Mumbai welcomed me with showers as soon as I came out of the airport.

And that's how my journey in Mumbai began…. A journey of a confused, timid yet so confident girl who decided to leave her own house and head towards this unknown city….the girl who wanted to stay alone and become independent. In search of herself…her true soul.

Frankly speaking this was a true adventure of my life…. I left my job in Delhi and came to Mumbai even without a job in hand. My parent relatives, friends (most of them) were in grim despair and awestruck wonder, with my decision. But still I decided to take a chance with my career, with my life.