Best gifts for best friend under ₹200

Rule a page like your old school report card and grade your friend in subjects only the two of you would get: "Replying to texts: D", "Sharing tiffin: A+", "Returning my hoodie: Absent". Add a remarks column and sign it as class teacher. Twenty minutes, bas. Don't be surprised if it stays taped inside their cupboard door for years.

Get one-minute voice notes from you and four or five friends, drop them in a shared Google Drive folder, and turn the link into a QR code with any free generator. Print the code, stick it on a card you've drawn yourself and write "Scan me" on the front. If your friend moved schools or cities and misses the old gang, this is my favourite on the whole list.

Make a fake newspaper front page in a free design app. Their photo is the lead story, the headline says something like "Local Girl Turns 19, Still Hasn't Returned Library Book", and the smaller stories are about your worst trips together. The xerox shop will print it in colour for ₹10 to ₹20 a page. Leave it on their bench before first period.

A small succulent from a local nursery usually costs ₹50 to ₹100, and the chai stall will give you a kulhad for almost nothing. Tie a ribbon around it and write their name on the clay in marker. Succulents can survive two weeks of being ignored during exams, which makes them great for a hostel window. If their room gets zero sun, though, pick something else.

Dip chocolate cream biscuits in milk, layer them in a steel tiffin or a small box, pour melted chocolate over each layer and leave it in the fridge for a few hours. All you need from the kirana is a packet or two of biscuits and one big chocolate bar. When no bakery delivers to the hostel or PG that late, this is your 12:00 cake. You just need someone with a fridge.

Cut chart paper into strips, write one reason they're your best friend on each, and loop them into a paper chain with one link for every year of their age. Add a ₹50 packet of balloons and a page of your photos from the xerox shop, then tape it all to their door at 11:50 pm. Check the hostel rules on tape first. Nothing kills the mood like a warden at 12:05.

Fill a shoebox with everything they keep borrowing from you or running out of: two good gel pens, a highlighter, sticky notes, coffee sachets, a packet of Maggi and glucose biscuits for the library. Write "For the 3 am revision" on the lid. If they've got boards, semesters or an entrance exam coming up, nothing else here will get used this much.

It's a cake-shaped badge they pin to their college bag on the day, so even the canteen uncle wishes them. On its own it's a bit small, so pair it with the report card or the biscuit cake. And club it into a friend's order to dodge the small-order delivery charge.

Murukku, sev and chips set in jaggery. Basically the canteen bhel plate turned into a sweet. It's a joke for the friend who eats bhel every evening, and it's small, so put it next to a note as an add-on.

You fill in the date you became friends, and "since Class 6" turns into an actual number of days. It works for a boy or a girl and sits on a desk without looking too cutesy. To find the real start date, scroll back to your oldest chat, or just ask their mother. She'll remember.

It's a fruity floral with a vanilla base, in a 20 ml bottle that lives in her college bag, so she'll actually use it every day and not save it for weddings. It sells way below the struck-out MRP, so ignore that number. Has she worn the same scent since Class 10 and refuses to switch? Then give her something else.

This is for the boy best friend who has used whatever soap was lying in the shared bathroom since first year. Three proper bars will last him most of a semester, and he'll turn up to the 9 am lecture smelling like he tried. Only a best friend can hand a guy soap and get away with it, so write "no offence" on the box.

You get a set of elastic bead bracelets with evil eye charms, and one size fits most. Keep one and give her the rest, or split the set across your girl gang so you all match in the group photo. If she never wears anything on her wrist except a watch, this one's not for her.

It's a self-adhesive clip that holds charging cables on the edge of a desk. Perfect for the friend whose charger falls behind the hostel bed every single night. It's small and a bit of a joke, and that's the point. Stick it on his desk yourself so he can't lose it in a drawer.

A pocket comb in sheesham wood, for the friend who's growing his first proper beard and can't stop touching it. It fits in a wallet pocket, so it'll go everywhere with him. If he's clean-shaven, don't, unless it's a dare.