I love and respect all my friends equally but then sometimes it happens that a random idea strikes my brain. And I, being a person who does random things and takes random decisions quite easily, just goes with that idea. The idea was to celebrate a friend’s birthday in a manner different than the usual. The idea or the basic theme mainly, was not about how great would the “pomp & show” be, but it was about “How well can I Inspire and Motivate my friend by making him visit his past for a span of not more than five minutes?”

My friend is lucky to have a sister like Shravika 🙂 Even despite her coaching and office hours which keeps her busy for almost 80% of the day, she agreed on helping me out with the celebration plans of mine for her brother’s birthday. Anyway, she’s a cute girl. Talking about the plans, she was supposed to give me a voice over on the poem that I wrote based upon the answer she gave on being asked the question “How has the relationship of You and your brother been till now?” Also, she was supposed to give me a few of the best childhood photos of her brother. Later on, I’ll be compiling them all into of a video.

We also decided to make a collective group video with Shravika, Vishw Nath, Tejasvee, Avantika etc but somehow, this could not be materialized. Anyway, going by the sequence, I invited and contacted a lot of people from my friend’s friend list and also requested them to do certain things in order to make my friend’s birthday special. A few of them gladly accepted the tasks whereas the other ones refused. I like the ones who accepted the tasks and I respect the ones who denied saying “I won’t be able to do it due to certain reasons”. I was frustrated on the ones who kept me hanging in the HANGING GARDENS of “I’ll let you know soon or give me your number, I’ll whatsapp you etc etc”. But then later on, i decided to let it go, thinking that it’s their way of showing their affection towards their dear friend.

A few jewels like Rohit Gandhi and Nikhil Khandelwal are one of the best people my friend has. Both of them have brilliant natures. On being asked for videos and other helps regarding the birthday celebration, both of them readily did everything that was being asked by me. Later on, on being asked again and again, few more friends like Avantika, Yamini, Meetali and Lisa also gave their video messages. Talking about those messages, at first I had promised myself that i won’t see the videos at all but then it somehow became very necessary to see the videos as we kinda noticed that the videos might be seen in front of the whole family of my friend. 😛

I’d really say that Uncle-Aunty were actually the best supporters and secret bags we had. Aunty used to help us out even in the slightest planning we did. Same can be said about Rajesh and Dinesh bhaiya, thanks to whom I was able to peep into the long lost hard drives of the long lost PCs in order to find out the LONG LOST photos of my friend. 😛

Most of all these tasks, planning, plotting etc were done when my friend used to go out of the city. And thanks to God and Uncle, he went to Delhi around 3-4 times last month which provided us with ample amount of time to work our plans out. It’s not that we didn’t use to work on our plans when he was here, but then still, when he was away, we used to cover the work of about three days in just one day with comparatively better freedom and less worries :P.

Reaching towards the final days of the preparation, Abhinav, another friend of the would be Birthday Boy, joined us. After he joined us, the speed of the work became fast but it became over-confusing too as per Shravika :P. Well, the work was becoming hell lot of fun too. We went to Swapanlok and other resorts and my friend used to keep wondering about where exactly did the petrol go because he just had a full tank a day before 😀 Just for info, we used his car for all this work. By the way, Rohit Gandhi had booked his tickets as he was coming to Jaipur as surprise for my friend. And Vishw Nath also, as he had promised, hadn’t told my friend about his arrival, which was awesome. Thank you Vishi, for that. 🙂

Just a night before the birthday, I received all the videos and messages i had asked for. And so fortunately, Shravika sent her voice over too, though just 15 min before 0000 hours i.e. for his birthday to start. I made and compiled the video till 3am at night and slept with no hopes of getting up early in morning i.e. at decided time of 6am. But miracle, I woke up at 6am. I rushed to my friend’s house where her sister and other cousins were waiting for me, Tejasvee and Abhinav. Now, I couldn’t begin the proceedings as Tejasvee was late, as always. But still, he’s THE FRIEND, so I can always wait 🙂 . Finally, Tejasvee arrived but Abhinav didn’t (he wasn’t answering the calls either). Now, I wasn’t in a mood to wait any longer. So, we all went inside the house and I asked Shravika to get a bottle of water. She got the water and asked me to drink it. But then I told her that she was supposed to pour that water on my friend’s face. When I told this to her, her facial expressions were exactly the same as Timon’s when he had seen the Hyenas in the movie, The Lion King.
Anyway, she had to agree (Bechari Bachchi 😛 ). Now, we all went to the room in which he was sleeping. Mind the time, it’s 7:30am. We took our positions. Me and Tejasvee were at both sides of the bed and Shravika was all set with the water.
Now she poured the water on my friend in such a sophisticated manner, that my mouth instantly said HAAYE ALLAH 😛 But anyway, we both fired the party poppers right at his face as he woke up in terror and surprise as if what had just happened. And we were all shouting “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”. It was all nice and positive. My friend also seemed to be happy and also his face was in a better condition considering the last night i.e. when no one really wished him properly, right according to the plan 😛 . Poor guy 😀

We decorated him with cake, all thanks to Tejasvee and Chandni. And then we finally cut the cake that Shravika had prepared for him the previous day. And the cake was really delicious and beautifully decorated. Now, suddenly Abhinav arrived. He had the cake and was sitting, when suddenly it popped in his mind “Oh shit ! I haven’t wished him yet 😛 ”. Anyway, we started to have some fun. We drenched my friend in water in the lawn in front of his house through a big hose. And so awesome he was looking. 😛 Now, somehow the day started to become a bit boring as not everything turned out the way we wanted it to be.

I enacted that my relative was coming to Jaipur so I had to go to the railway station to pick him up but Birthday boy had to help him as i didn’t have any vehicle at that point of time. We went to the Railway station and face of my friend was worth watching when he saw that the relative thing was rubbish and actually it was Rohit Gandhi who had arrived. He was still wasn’t able to believe it as even during our car journey back to him he was watching Rohit again and again through the rear view mirror, as if he had seen him but was working on believing. 😀

After we reached home, we prepared ourselves and had lunch after which we left for Pride Amber Villas resort, thanks to Uncle. Now, we were on the way but still buddy had no info about any other surprise that was waiting for him. We reached there and clicked a few pics, roamed around here and there. Now finally after some delay, the surprise finally arrived, who was none other than Vishw Nath, a friend we had made during our stay at the Manipal University. Again, birthday boy’s face was worth watching. 🙂

Now after sometime, Shravika arrived at the resort with her cousins. They took so much time due to the cake, all thanks to Ms. Baker’s. We cut the cake and had some fun. Tejasvee took a video on how Birthday boy was feeling, which anyway was a good video 😀 Now, we had ordered for the food but it had to take some time, obviously. So, I and Shravika decided to finally show to everyone the video that i had been working for since almost last two months. According to the mutual decision, we showed the video on Shravika’s laptop. The video was played and the surprises were unleashed. First, it was Rohit’s video followed by hamare, aapke, sabke pyare, Nikhil Khandelwal’s Video again followed by poem in Shravika’s voice. The best video, according to me was Shravika’s as it had a lot of childhood pics of my friend along with his family. As the video ended, I could notice the heaviness in the atmosphere. My friend later told me that somehow, he managed to control his tears, but he saw that his father did have a tear in his eye. I wondered if the video really was so emotional. I didn’t tell this to anyone, but even my hands had started trembling. I left the room so as to normalize myself and bring everything into control. We had dinner and some photography sessions as a part of enjoyment. We had a lot of masti time, singing the musics of old cartoons which was so fun 😀

Now, i felt that there is only one thing left to happen, so that the day could become complete. It was the rains. Aunty had told me that every year without failure, it rains on my Friend’s birthday. So, all i was waiting for, was RAINS. And as we were leaving for our respective homes, it finally rained. And damn it rained so heavily that even driving had become so difficult. I loved it. Anyway, the day was awesome. We still had two surprises left for him, which we gave him afterwards. The day was good and so were the last two months.

To the people who think that it’s just a birthday, It’s your opinion and i respect it. But sometimes, a Birthday can become more than just a birthday because behind all the planning and secrecy, a lot of emotions are involved. Friends are there, but more importantly it’s about the emotions of the family.

My friend’s name is RAKSHIT GOYAL.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, BROTHER 🙂 I don’t have much wishes left to give you as i said and told everything on your birthday itself. Enjoy and stay happy.