The Bespoke Back-present

Ironically,I had just finished reading Amy Chua’s best-selling Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (in three hours,I confess) and it proselytised me almost entirely. Fun parenting is lazy parenting,children must work hard and mothers must work even harder.

So,the birthday party was my new project. It had to be different. Not at a party hall in a private club with a rented puppet show/ deejay/ emcee/ tattooist/ hair braider etcetera. How quotidian!

I rented (for a steal) a refurbished art deco movie theatre from the 1930s and screened a fuzzy and forgotten animated film for the kids. I decided on catering from the cinema’s canteen: samosa,chicken patties and ice candy instead of pasta counters,gelato stations and Laduree-copy macaroons. I called in a private caterer friend for a three-kilo wonder cake; it had to be in the shape of the film’s character,not just a screen-printed image on it.

But the back-presents,I had to get inventive on those. They had to be something memorable without being eagerly expensive.

I had heard about kids receiving iPods as return presents but sadly my son hadn’t been invited to any of them. A friend’s daughter received a Rs 3,000 bicycle from a birthday party and I thought that was shamelessly extravagant too. Another stupidly self-indulgent prezzie is a T-shirt with the letters ‘I went to So-and-So’s birthday party’. Ideal for the maid’s kids,no?

Birthday parties these days are mini weddings and we all know of the party planners involved. But spending is easy,doing it yourself is what a Tiger Mother would do.

My favourite return gift came from a friend (a Tiger Mother indeed with a successful self-owned company,two kids under 5 and a superbly creative and stimulating entertainer) who put together a picnic at Priyadarshini Park,complete with little wooden furniture for the tots. We snacked on jaggery chikki the shape of fish,cookies with spider’s legs,homemade smileys and lots of fun stuff. The return gift was a glossy recipe book of delectables from the menu. And no one’s done better than that.

Another heartwarming giveaway was a hand-painted nameplate which the kids make themselves at the party. A canvas they’ve just painted (my son’s is more precious to me than the Sabavala in dining room). A goldfish in a bowl,though not everyone wants a pet. Potted plants keep with the green theme of everything these days but are no fun for kids.

I trundled to a suitcase store at the local bazaar and asked them if they would custom-make kid-size strolley bags with characters from the movie on it. They would. I filled the ‘goody-bags’ with décor stickers,candy,yo-yos and mini kaleidoscopes.

Yes,a mini suitcase. The back-present is the new hand-bag after all.

( namratanow@gmail.com )