Enterprising youngsters are dumping cliche` and creating unusual gifts for friends, family
Humaira Ansari
When the clock struck midnight, birthday girl Diksha Raghani was flummoxed as her friends broke into a unique chorus, singing "happybirthdaydiksha.com". It was only after the group plonked a laptop before Raghani, did she realise what the suffix in the song stood for. "My friends gifted me a website on my birthday," said Raghani, who turned 23. The website's homepage, a bright red, featured a crowned image of Raghani and included separate sections for birthday wishes, photo gallery, guest book and a poll gallery, guestbook and poll inviting family and friends to vote for the birthday girl's best facial feature.
Life in the dotcom age has its own manifestations. And, Mumbai's youth are making complete use of the e-world to surprise loved ones with quirky gifts. It could be a dedicated website, a photo film with music and subtitles, printed rip-offs of family and friends as write-ups, or a hard-bound book printed with photos and text. The list of innovative personalised gifts is quite the " in thing", said Raghani.
However, unlike the easily accessible e-greeting cards, personalised gifts are not just a mouse click away. They require some out-of the box thinking. "There are a lot of website offering free software that can be easily downloaded. It's easy to buy a domain name from web portals like Weebley and Webnode.com at a minimal price for a Particular duration," said Sandeep Sachdeva, who worked on Raghani's website with two other friends. They bought the domain name happy birthdaydiksha.com for a period of one year at Rs600.
The effort is also to incorporate such elements in the gift, which are an extension of the receiver's personality Harsha Jawhrani, a budding photographer, went through countless brain-racking days to come up with a gift idea for her best friend Supriya's birthday.
"it's cliched to even say that I didn't want to gift her perfume and chocolates," said Jawhrani. "Supriya has this knack of dissecting and analysing daily newspaper. So, I thought why not gift her one on her birthday."
The idea was followed by a week-long data collecting session from Supriya's friends. Quirky comments, shared memories, embarrassing moments and funny pictures, all were compiled into a serious newspaper format. "After I got all the information, I finished the layout in a day and gave it for printing," said Jawhrani, who also emailed a soft copy of the newspaper to Supriya.
Supriya was surprised and ecstatic to receive the whacky gift. "I love my Mad Day (the newspaper's name). Anything I feel nostalgic, I go online and just click open my newspaper read my friends' comments and feel better," Supriya said.
For bookworms like 18-years-old Raima Pujari, the best possible gift is the latest bestseller. But, Pujari got a bestseller of a different kind on her birthday last month. "My brother got me this hardbound printed book, titled Sister Cool. It had a preface written by my parents," said Pujari. The 100-Page book included 18 chapters, each one on an importance event in the teenager's life. "It was like an encapsulated version of my 18 years of being." Pujari added.
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