In for a surprise?

Hyderabad: Cousins Varun Todi and Harshvardhan Khemani are making a living out of surprising people. They have started a “surprise” shop called Oye Happy and charge for surprising people. Harsh says he wanted to do something different and realised that the one thing he was good at was surprising people. So he discussed the idea with his cousin, Varun, who came on board as the creative director. “Surprises usually boil down to a cake and flowers and we wanted to do much more than that,” says Varun.

The duo started with just five surprises a month in 2009 and today gets requests for more than 200 surprises. Harsh adds, “At the airport, we help people surprise with a bear hug. The idea is that you would anyways give them a hug, so how about a giant bear hug before that? And for people who are coming back to the city after a long time, we have  ‘missed you’ banners for them.” Harsh recounts one of their most memorable surprises: “Our youngest client has been a 12-year-old girl, Smriti. She asked us to help her surprise her parents on their anniversary and said that she had saved up Rs 200. Of course we did not charge her and her parents really liked the surprise.”

“We once had a 75-year-old man who wanted to surprise his grandchildren. We get a lot of requests from people in the age group of 60 to 65 years who want to surprise their wives,” adds Harsh. The city-based company also has freelancers working in Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Pune. But the surprises come for a price, from Rs 250 going up to lakhs. Harsh says, “We charge Rs 650 for the bear hug at the airport. But if we get a request to personalise a surprise, then the price, of course, varies.” The duo is busy planning their next big surprise at the moment: “Someone has approached us to surprise his fiancé. So we have identified an old haveli in the city, decorated it and would be arranging a personal chef for the day. This surprise costs Rs 75,000,” adds Harsh.