(From top) Jyoti Ramnath’s personalised magazines and coffee mugs are popular picks; Mansi Poddar (right) and Kanika Parab write personalised verses for loved ones; Ruchi Chopra can devise surprises for every occasion; Rohan Sabharwal is making short films on ordinary people

Would you like to surprise your parents on their anniversary by gifting them a coffee mug with their pictures on it? Or, would you like to woo your girlfriend with a very special bottle of wine — with a four-line poem on the label composed specially for her? Or, how about surprising your wife on her birthday with a live band playing for her at home?

It’s tough, isn’t it, to think of Very Special Presents for your close friends and relatives in this age of plenty. It isn’t enough anymore to present your wife a nice silk sari if she already has a cupboard full of them at home. And, your girlfriend won’t be impressed either unless she sees that you’ve made a really special effort to woo her.

That’s why you should start thinking about personalised, specially crafted presents for your loved ones. And you might do well to consult one of a crop of young entrepreneurs who are pulling out all the stops to deliver a host of customised services at your doorstep. You could order personalised coffee mugs or even commission a filmmaker to turn out a short film on the person you love.

Says Himanshu Dogra, owner of design store Play Clan in Delhi: “Customisation means that there is a strong emotional connect. So whether it is hand-painted sneakers or photo coffee mugs or stationery, today customers want some kind of personal touch in each and every product.”

Here’s looking at some of innovative customised services that can’t be had off-the-shelf and which are full of fun.

Rhyme time

Have you ever thought about composing poems for your loved one? If your attempts turned out worse than verse you might need to call up Mansi Poddar and Kanika Parab of Idea Shop who call themselves ‘idea consultants’.

These two writers will pen odes for your friends, parents or partner or whoever else you wish to send a poem to. But that’s only half the story. The poem will then be placed on the label of a wine bottle, or on a cake or wherever else you’d like it. The duo charges a mere Rs 500 for a four-line verse but they hike their charges depending on where the poem will appear. “The cost increases depending on how exclusive you want the gift to be. For instance, it will cost more if you want the poem to be written on an expensive wine bottle, cookies, cakes and so on,” says Poddar. They’ve just started out and currently have about 15 clients every month.

For instance, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a film producer, they wrote a poem in the form of a film script and put it inside what looked like a film can in which reels are placed.

The two also offer their services to corporate clients. “We give ideas to designers, filmmakers and restaurateurs to start cool and innovative services,” says Poddar who worked as a public relations executive with various PR firms in New York. Parab was a journalist.

In order to get a personalised poem anywhere in India, you can email them at poems.ideashop@gmail.com.

On a roll

Is your life worth being captured on celluloid? A lot of people certainly think so and they are calling up short film-maker Rohan Sabharwal of Ten10 films in Mumbai. Sabharwal, in fact, got his idea from Poddar and Parab of Idea Shop. Says Sabharwal: “When I was approached by the Idea consultants to customise films on ordinary people, I just jumped on to it.”

The film could be anywhere between five and 30 minutes in length. But there is a catch. Sabharwal has been flooded with potential commissions. He has decided that the person’s life should have some interesting moments in it to be made into a film.

“It’s quite a challenging task to sort the best stories out of the thousands I get every day. I have just narrowed it down to 130 stories and out of which I will select only 60 stories to work on,” he says. His charges are quite modest and vary between Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 depending on the length of the film.

Some interesting subjects he is working on include a person who has worked with the Indian Railways for 25 years, a national volleyball player and an ambulance man who has handled 2,000 emergency cases during his career. Sabharwal can be contacted on www.rohansabharwal.com.

He plans to use some of the material he collects at leading international short film festivals.

Telling a tale

Personalised books are good gifts for kids

Does your child have a shelf crammed with books and DVDs? But wouldn’t your little prince or princess like to have a book in which he or she is the hero or heroine? “Personalised books are all the rage because more parents want a bit of exclusivity while gifting books to their little ones. Moreover, these books help inculcate reading habits in children,” says Manoj C. Dayal, vice president of Calcutta-based online store www.mypersonalizedmall.com.

In these books, the child’s name along with the names of two or three other close friends are inserted in the book. “So if it’s a Spiderman book, the child feels that he is Spiderman himself,” says Dayal.

The company has acquired 12 titles from their publishers — these range from fantasy tales to superhero stories like Batman and Spiderman. The graphic design is done at the company’s office in Texas and then delivered at the client’s doorstep. The cost of the customised book starts at Rs 349. The company also offers a range of personalised products like coffee mugs, key chains, mousepads, pens and so on, customised at their Calcutta office. Prices of these products range between Rs 60 and Rs 6,000.

What a surprise!

Ever thought of organising a live band to be at the airport to receive your friends? That’s one of the many possibilities offered by Ruchi Chopra, 25, who runs a Delhi-based company Any Surprise Any Place (www.asap.co.in).

A graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chopra worked for a few years in a clothing company before venturing out on her own in 2007. She customises surprises for occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, Valentine’s Day and so on. Some of her interesting surprise gifts include a birthday newspaper to mark the special day, romantic dinners with all the works, cocktails in a limousine and so on.

Starting out was difficult because the concept was very new. “We started out by delivering customised visiting cards to friends and acquaintances and to some we sent personalised cookies with names on it. Word spread quickly and soon we started getting phone calls,” says Chopra. Today, she has tie-ups with 30 vendors (including florists, graphic designers and even carpenters). She can deliver surprises in Bangalore, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Pune.

The minimum order is for Rs 1,000 and prices could rise to a lakh or even more. For one couple they organised a dinner which ended with a box of personalised chocolates being presented to the girl and 50 heart-shaped balloons floating out of their car’s boots afterwards.

For another businessman they organised 40 surprises spread over six days when he was off on a business trip. “The surprise package was planned by his wife and wherever he went he found some unique gift for him,” says Chopra. That particular set of surprises cost Rs 1.8 lakh.

Show time

Why don’t you add a new dimension to your get togethers? Shamiana Short Film Club in Mumbai owned by theatre actor and short-filmmaker Cyrus Dastur has started a dial-a-film show that can be despatched anywhere in India. “It can be on the terrace, in the living room, in the farmhouse, in an art gallery or a lounge bar,” says Dastur who started Shamiana in Mumbai in June 2008. You just have to send an email to www.shamianashorts@gmail.com.

Dastur has a library of over 3,000 short films in English and Hindi and various other languages including Korean, Chinese and Spanish. For a wedding anniversary Dastur recommends the 11-minute Spanish short film Chocolate or even the nine-minute English film George Lucas In Love. Some of his other hotsellers include a 12-minute political film in Hindi, Black Freedom and Little Terrorist, a 15-minute film in Hindi.

On receiving a request, they will come at your place with a projector and the screen and set up everything — they’ll even organise the seating if you wish. Prices are on request.

Poster perfect

Dastur has over 3,000 short films for clients to choose from

Maybe you’d like to be the star of a Bollywood movie? Ok, if you can’t quite manage that, why not settle for having your wedding portrait done like a Bollywood poster?

This service is offered by Limona Studio, started by two Frenchwomen Sarah Loosdregt, 38, and Sophie Legoubin, who have commissioned three Mumbai poster painters to customise Bollywood posters.

Both women are Hindi film lovers and have translated their passion into a successful business. In 2004, they met three poster painters in Mumbai — Suresh Sandal, Deepak Naresh and S. Reeham — who then attended a workshop in Paris that showcased their style of poster painting. Their works were also showcased at the Bombaysers Festival at Lille in 2006. “With the advent of digital printing many poster artists are out of work. Therefore, customisation of Bollywood posters has given a fresh lease of life to this dying craft,” says Loosdregt.

So how does it work? Clients from all over the world mail their photos along with their favourite Hindi film posters to www.limonastudio.com. The duo then commissions the poster artists in India to create hand-painted posters in oil colours. So if you want to look like Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge or Rekha in Umrao Jaan, you can have your dreams come true. Expect to shell out between 300 euros (Rs 20,578 approx.) to 600 euros (Rs 41,151 approx.) for these Bollywood posters.

Cover story

Loosdregt (left) and Legoubin create customised hand-painted Bollywood posters

Alternatively, how about a whole magazine dedicated to your life? That’s exactly what Bangalore- based Jyoti Ramnath, 27, is offering. Her online gifting portal www.craftmygifts.com creates customised gifts for special moments like a six-pager magazine or personalised pencil portraits or even coffee-mugs.

The personalised magazines are the hottest selling items. Says Ramnath: “We collect basic information about the client and fill up the ‘magazine’ with interesting stories and family pictures which make it very exciting.” A six-pager magazine is priced at Rs 1,800 and an eight-pager at Rs 2,500. Once the order is placed, she works closely with the client taking inputs from them. Though currently her service is available in Bangalore, she gets orders from other Indian cities as well like Delhi and Mumbai.