Lesson learnt about surprises.

I am not one for surprises. The idea of being part of a surprise for someone else is ok. But people surprising me, well I am not sure if that will down well. I guess that’s because very rarely have I seen the surprise being completely about the person to be surprised. If I lost you there you have the time to back and read that sentence again. What I am trying to say is that, lot of surprises I have come across are about embarrassing the so called special person. The very person whose day/occasion it is. I have come across, ‘SURPRISE J J YAYAYAYA…ok now treat treat treat’, to publicly surprising or rather embarassing the person by singing for them in a mall or in a restaurant and expecting them to feel so special. I believe that is more like scarring them. Unfortunately I have been part of groups that did the latter. Now when I think back about those days, all I can say is I have learnt what not to do going forward. Unless of course you know the person well enough to realise that the person loves that kind of attention.

So the bottom line is I am very sceptical about these ‘surprises’. About a couple of weeks back was my birthday, and my gosh! have I learnt a lesson about surprises?! I have a couple of very close friends who have taught me a thing or two about surprises. Over the past month, I got to know that a surprise was being planned for me. And of course, I began by boasting that I found out that there was a surprise, then I became painful. Fussing and whining about the entire surprise. Even though I had no clue what the surprise was all about. The person who faced the brunt of my whining was my wife, as usual she was patient and managed to put up with it. The young couple, our best friends, also are very patient. So they put up with me as well. Slowly I began to hear of the ones who were invited for the surprise, and that put me off even more. I was thinking to myself, how come this person is invited, how come that person is invited. I remember my self whining and saying, ‘I told my wife that a few close friends were all I needed for my birthday, and look who she ends up inviting. Sha! I don’t believe I have to put up with this.’ Little did I know once the surprise was unveiled I would eat humble pie, and along with that all the words that uttered from my mouth.

It was around 3 in the afternoon when I was asked to come over to a friends place. The friend has a nice big balcony. So I thought they were using that for the usual, cake cutting, shouting surprise and things like that. But nothing could prepare me for what was actually planned. As I go up, I was asked be blind folded. I did not like that idea, I was actually getting a little irritated. With much resistance I succumbed to the pressure and was blind folded. As I walk up the last flight of stairs, I heard my dads voice, the my moms voice, then my uncles voice…. I couldn’t help but think of who else would be there. But I was led into my friends house, through the living room and towards the balcony door. And then the blindfold was removed, when my eyes returned to normal I looked at the door that had a ribbon across it with my mom, all dressed up standing beside me with a tray with a pair of scissors on it. The obvious thing was for me to cut the ribbon. Of course the humorous part was that, even before I could cut the ribbon there were people on the other side ready to take photographs of me. But that a side, I cut the ribbon and walked on to the balcony, and in a flash I learnt my lesson. When your really close friends decide on a surprise, it is always about you. Nothing more nothing less. It is about what you would like, not what they would like. It is about keeping your interest in mind and not theirs. I guess I stalled enough. So here it goes, as I stepped on to the balcony, on three walls were 11 photographs that I had taken. They were framed, titled and mounted on the wall. And guess what a long pending dream of mine they brought to reality. They had organised an exhibition in my honour. Everything was taken care off, an invite was sent to all friends who were interested in photography, the invite I got to see which I got see later, a picture of the photographer along with a few lines to describe my type of photography, the snacks, courtesy my friends and my moms efforts with the short bread, cake and brownies. I couldn’t believe it, good friends, family, goodies to eat and whats more, I get to make money out of my own birthday party. All the photographs mounted were for sale. And it only gets better, people bought them! Some pictures were selling like hot cakes, we had to take orders to make re-prints of them. I just stood there in amazement!

I felt like a professional, standing there walking people through each photograph and explaining the environment in which it was taken, any challenges when taking the picture..so on and so forth. But what was really amazing is the amount of work that had gone into preparing this entire exhibition. Preparing the invite, thinking of the guest list, choosing the photographs, naming each photograph, mounting the photos to framing them, then transporting the pictures to the venue, then setting them up, then arranging the snacks, oh my!!! It must have been one big challenge, yet they pulled it of with perfection. And in addition to all of this they had to put up with my whining. Of course I did apologise later on. However this reminded me that I was loved, loved more than I thought I was. Thanks a lot to my wife Sharon, and my couple friends Steven and Poojitha. They are quite something.

So there you have it, in somewhat of a nutshell is my lesson learnt. Now I know, if a surprise is coming from someone who loves me dearly, it will always be about me. So there will be no more whining coming from me when I know a surprise is coming from these guys. I will just sit back (or stand up, depending on the situation) with open arms and welcome it.

A big thank you once again to my wife Sharon, friends Steven and Poojitha for organising this entire thing. And thank you to all who were present and encouraged me to continue to pursue my love for photography.