Birthdays

What are birthdays really about...

The concept of celebrating birthdays is one of the western customs that gravitated towards our culture. The chief highlights of most of my birthdays were an early morning head bath, a visit to the temple of my parents choice and may be a bar of chocolate. Later the trend meandered to more altruistic pursuits such as distributing chocolates to classmates, of course the all importanat status symbol, the brand of chocolate was ever present in their preoccupation with birthdays. My mother never one to be outdone used to purchase the cheapest ones and put them in fancy tins. The ruse worked well, until another of my class mates whose mother used the same technique told others about it.

The birthday parties were the next in the celebration history, you invited all your friends to your house for dinner along with their parents, if you had any manners at all, you collected your gifts, cut the cake, ate the food and finally gave 'return presents', stuff like silver pencils or tiny stuffed dolls for them to take home and mitigate the disppointment of having to have given you presents :P The nature, expense incurred in these annual congregations determined your social status in school. Birthdays were more about reinforcing popularity, flaunting opulence rather than the celebration of yourself. And half the invitees were bound to be your parents friends whose gifts of money were automatically reverted to parents- I mean whats the use of giving gifts that I cannot use!! Between the stoicism of the temples and the flagrant expenditure of the parties , there was little to recommend birthdays to me.

Post X standard my birthday was non existant save for a few friends who'd politely wish me on that day, barring the fact that they fell, inevitably on weekends... It was during my engineering days that the day of my birth finally proved itself memorable. I had made new friends as my class had changed during the third semester- three great guys and three groovy gals, a symmetry of coolness, grace, beauty, wits, brains and fun!! My bonding with them was of an entirely different genre than that of my school friends, we exchanged friendship bands, lunches, assignments and lab work, swapped stories, jokes and anecdotes. Our preferences were diverse as were our regionalities- but we gelled...

On my birthday they gave gifts that were actually stuff i craved- like a notepad to scribble my poems, a dvd of my favorite movie, a cd with popular hindi songs, a pink teddy and other stuff that neither my parents nor my brother could claim utility of.. Hour long phone conversations from mid night, a three hour, five course lunch became staple birthday offerings. in additon was the fun in planning somebody's surprise, getting them something- cherishing the look on their face. I got my face creamed for the first time on my 18th birthday- a little late but worth every moment. The surprise parties, snow spray became more precious than their gifts. The fact that these poeple were willing to take time, money and thought to celebrate my special day made me ecstatic and all the more determined to return my debt in kind...

Now, birthdays symbolise much much more than the day I was born, its become a day to share with my friends- my extended family, the relatives that I chose, who are not linked to me biologically but mean equally as much just the same.. Hunting for suspicious activities among my friends, trying to read their "knowing" glances, guessing what they bought this time around are the general order of things preceding my birthday. It has now become a day to recount the old memories, make new fun ones for future reference, get creamed, kicked and sprayed- and return the favour with equal enthusiasm. More about me and what my life includes and less superficial expense... With each year that I grow, I gain newer friends, meet more people, gather moss and once each year I relax, let my hair down in the celebration of life- what the world has given me to be thankful for- enjoy the panorama, feel the breeze, savour the sunset, smell the roses, erase regrets and carry on with living... thats what birthdays are Really about!!!