At an unearthly hour, if you find a smug-looking group of 20-somethings at your doorstep, whisking you away unannounced, for say, a helicopter ride, don't look distraught. Your special someone has conspired with an ingenious bunch of friends-turned-founders of OMG Makers. These first-of-a-kind ‘surprise planners' in the city say they want to make every possible occasion memorable and if allowed, outrageous.
Sharran, Vimal, Kushboo, Rupesh, Falguni, Naresh, Chandni, Prashanth and Sairam can strike at any hour of any given day, except maybe Friday nights, they confess sheepishly. Management graduates and post-graduates, an actor, an engineering student, a visual artist, a school dropout — each infuses into the team some expertise and some experimentation. Conceptualised and initiated by Sharran and Vimal, the idea was born when the two were organising events at schools and colleges for an event management company. The nine are ‘friends, and friends of friends'. Though their venture is merely five months old, they are already doing five to eight surprises a week.
“We have packages that cost between Rs. 2.000 and Rs. 2 lakh. The most basic is the rhythm package, where you can get a cake, a bouquet and a musician to play an instrument of your choice. The most indulgent you can get is with our, ‘Up in the air' package where you can gift a helicopter ride,” says Rupesh. They have other packages such as ‘Filmy style' where the client can ask to re-enact or re-create scene from films and ‘Silver Screen', in which before the movie begins in a theatre, there will be a still on the big screen with the wishes. “We also offer to make a person's entire day special — starting with a customised newspaper in the morning with messages, organising a poolside dinner at Taj and coming up small surprises throughout the day,” says Sharran.
Other than their many customised packages and personalised gifts, one can also suggest an idea, which the team will execute. Though they prefer a week's notice, last minute requests, they say are inevitable. “When we get requests from people outside Chennai, we rush to find cousins, friends or anyone we know in that city and make the surprise happen,” says Kushboo. Tie-ups with hotels, eateries, suppliers and NGOs help conjure up a surprise quickly. Many of their gifts such as scented candles, hand-made baskets and bags, and chocolates are sourced from NGOs.
“The best part of our work is that we have a lot of fun. We want to have a bigger team and more orders every day,” they chorus.
