As most of you know by now, 5 July was my wife Rekha’s birthday.
And not just any birthday….it was her 50th birthday.
Fifty is the age where people start saying things like “health is wealth,” “job satisfaction is more important than money,” and “I think I will hit the bed early today.”
So naturally, because I am her husband, and because I had recently written an entire article about how to buy a gift for the woman you love, many people started asking me, “So Rajan, what are you buying Rekha?”
This is the problem with giving any kind of advice. When it is your turn, those who heard your advice end up asking, “Okay professor, now tell us what did you do?”
A psychologist may tell people, “Stay calm, breathe deeply, do not react emotionally,” and then shout at the Swiggy delivery boy because he didn’t bring the customary tomato sauce packets along with the pizza.
Similarly, I had written a full thesis on gifting your wife. But when Rekha’s 50th birthday came, I was standing exactly where most husbands stand before a wife’s birthday – confused, guilty and afraid.
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In the early days of marriage, I used to go to great lengths for Rekha’s birthdays and our wedding anniversaries. Please don’t look shocked….I have always been a romantic partner.
Not efficient romantic like today’s boys who order flowers from Ferns and Petals or a chocolate cake from an app, write “Happy birthday babe,” and think they are Devdas Mukherjee.
I was old-school romantic. For instance, one year, I came home early from office and tried to cook pasta for Rekha. I say “tried” because it was not cooked properly. Only a man can mess up pasta.
I laid out the dining table, put flowers, switched off the lights….and waited for Rekha to come back from office.
Since Rekha had the keys, I decided I would hide behind a wall and record her reaction with a handycam.
For those born straight into Instagram reels, a handycam was a device people used to record videos before phones became custodians of our self-worth.
When at 7 pm, Rekha opened the door, I was hiding in the darkness with the handycam ready. I wanted her to be stunned by my romantic effort.
She opened the door, and instead of gasping with love, she looked straight at the red recording light of the handycam and asked, “What are you doing in the dark with a handycam?”
One may think that just because Rekha spotted me before I could record her reaction, romance died. No sir!
The pasta may have been bad, the surprise may have been detected, but that day I scored points. And in marriage, you must take points wherever and whenever you can get them.
Sometimes it comes from diamonds, but most times it comes from small efforts.
On yet another birthday, I recorded a fifteen-minute message for her on a CD.
Today’s kids send out voice notes on Whatsapp…but back then love required CDs – either to record your messages or to record your favourite songs and pass it on to the girl (or boy!).
A day before her birthday I sat down like a radio jockey, recorded my feelings, burnt them onto a CD, and then played it twice just to be sure it worked.
But because I am a Rajan, and you know that we Rajans are romantics…I made one small improvement. I left fifteen minutes of silence at the beginning of the CD.
Why? Because we Rajans love suspense, drama and build-up.
So on her birthday, I told Rekha I would drop her at work and just before she got into the car, I played the CD. But because the first fifteen minutes were silent, she had no idea anything was playing.
We drove quietly. The weather was nice…and 15 minutes was just the time we needed to get out of the traffic and hit Old Mahabalipuram Road, which back then…was a road with no traffic.
Then, just as we had hit OMR and were on our way to Cognizant where she worked back then, the car stereo suddenly spoke.
“Hey Rekha, how are you today? Sitting next to the man you love…”
My dramatic dialogues went on.
I spoke about how we met. How we started living together with just a mat, a table fan, a desktop, a tawa, a pan, and a single kadai.
How we had very little and how we were slowly building a life.
How we were a few years into marriage, but she had already become my home.
By the time the recording ended, Rekha was sobbing and I was choking. It was a great start to her birthday.
Also a dangerous one because once you set such standards early in marriage, you create problems for your future self.
Now when I think of it, the young Rajan should have had some concern for old Rajan….and played it easy.
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Over time, with work, children, two EMIs, school fees, etc things changed.
I stopped going to such dramatic lengths but it didn’t mean I loved Rekha any less. It only means life became more practical.
Earlier, love was a fifteen-minute CD full of drama. Now love is forwarding her screenshot of EB payment, the LIC premium payment receipt or the SMS I got from Revathy Gas Agency after booking the cylinder, before she even asks.
If you ask me, that’s how marriage changes…romance does not disappear….it just takes another form.
But this time because this was her 50th birthday, I knew I had to do something.
I had to do something that was thoughtful enough for a 50th birthday but safe enough for her to like. It couldn’t have been a CD because I will be honest, now if you ask me to speak for 15 minutes into a mic about Rekha and me, I wouldn’t be able to. If you make me sit next to her, and give me a mic, we both will be able to speak into the mic the whole night.
As I was struggling to figure out what to get her, my daughter Rhea asked me, “Appa, what are you getting for Amma?”
I said, “That’s what my readers have also been asking.”
She said, “Shut up and answer me.”
There is a certain pleasure in listening to your children boss over you.
I said, “I don’t know Rhea. I am thinking of getting her a saree.”
She looked at me with the expression one usually reserves for someone who still believes that the Earth is flat, “And you haven’t bought it yet? What are you waiting for – an auspicious day?”
Now, one does like one’s kids bossing over you but when they become sarcastic, it stops being cute. I could see a second Rekha growing up.
Long story short, I roped in Rhea to help me find a gift for her mother.
This was part of the process I had myself recommended – consult other women who know your wife. Because daughters know their mothers better than husbands do.
A husband may think he knows his wife after twenty-five years, but a daughter who has seen her mother’s Amazon and Myntra order history for five minutes can defeat him.
So the plan was made. Rhea would tell Rekha that she was stepping out with Ishaan, a friend of hers who was also in Chennai for the summer vacation. She would go to Marina Mall, and I was to leave office at noon and secretly meet her there.
Together, father and daughter would buy the perfect gift for the woman who was going to turn 50.
Now, one would imagine that a responsible child, someone in the second year of college, someone who knows the seriousness of a mother’s 50th birthday, would stay focused on the task.
But as soon as we got off the lift on the ground floor of Marina Mall, she spotted McDonald’s.
And she said, “You know how long it has been since I have had a Maharaja Mac?”
I said, “No.”
She asked, “Do you want to know?”
While I wanted to know how long it had been, she ended up saying something totally unrelated, “Suddenly I am feeling hungry. Are you okay if we have something before we select the gift for amma?”
Then we spent twenty minutes figuring out what to order, out of which I used exactly one minute to decide that I wanted a Maharaja Mac, fries, and Coke.
After the ordering, we spent forty minutes eating. While I finished my burger in ten minutes, Rhea said as an upcoming chef she was relishing hers.
By the time we came out of McDonald’s, it was almost 2 p.m. So much for focus.
After getting out of the World of junk food I asked, “So where do we go?”
“Miniso,” she said.
“Miniso? For your mother?”
I knew about Miniso. I knew it was popular with kids. I knew it sold cute things, pink things, soft things, unnecessary things, and things that look inexpensive individually but together can quietly damage a father’s wallet.
But I had never gone there to buy a birthday gift for my wife.
Rhea said, “Yes Appa, we will find cute things we can gift Amma.”
I fell for it. Twenty minutes later, we stepped out of Miniso with a pink eyelash curler.
Not for my wife…she hardly wears make up. But for Rhea….who apparently had wanted an eyelash curler for the last four years.
Next we went to Zouk. Rhea had inside information that Rekha wanted a black, medium-sized bag. Apparently daughters have access to intelligence networks unavailable to husbands.
There were a few black, medium-sized bags in the store but when I picked one, Rhea said, “No, that’s not Amma’s style.”
I picked another.
“No Appa.”
I picked a third.
“Definitely not.”
At this point, I wanted to tell her that when her Amma came into this style bhai’s life, she had no style.
She had long hair full of coconut oil. She wore a red T-shirt with a blue jeans…like Chunkey Pandey in the 1990s.
For Gen Z people, Chunky Pandey is Ananya Panday’s father, and in our times he was a man who proved that confidence was sometimes more important than acting. You have probably seen him now a days in the Ninja Combi 14-in-1 Multicooker advertisement where he ‘acts’ with his daughter.
So technically, whatever style Rekha has today, I have contributed to it. Therefore if I like a bag, she should like it. But I did not say this aloud…and we walked out of Zouk without a bag.
Then we went to Pantaloons and Lifestyle looking for a shawl for Rekha.
Rekha works for MetLife, and because she works from home most days, a few days a week she comes to my company’s office space and works from there.
At this point, you should know that I have a cabin in my office….something I have worked hard for. But whenever Rekha comes to my office, she goes inside that cabin and sits….while I am forced to find a chair outside.
Since sometimes my cabin can get very cold, I thought of buying her a shawl. At this juncture, I would like you to pause reading and appreciate my selflessness. If I don’t buy her a shawl, she may find the cabin too cold and stop sitting there. That would benefit me, but no…that won’t be an act this Rajan will be proud of. We Rajans do not take shortcuts. If we win, we want to win with our dignity intact.
You may wonder how a lady who sleeps at 18 degrees at night struggles with office AC. Please don’t ask such questions….we have already established that women are complicated beings.
Anyway, we searched for shawls….but couldn’t find any. And that’s when we decided to just focus on sarees – the last item on our list.
Now try reading the second part – how Rhea and I selected two sarees for Rekha.