Feliz Cumple!

There's always a certain nervousness as the day approaches... Like the run up to a performance to a large audience... 

One would be woken by the slight tickle on the foot, a soft voice in the ear and the warm hug one always is in need of... Festive morning, with everyone on tiptoes around you trying to make you feel as special as possible within the walls of your home...

Nobody knocks on the bathroom door this day... Water will not be a concern for today... All soaked in oil, scrubbed clean one emerges to brand new clothes with creases as fresh as blossoming jasmines and the pooja niche all set up...

She looks on with pride and he with all the affection... She's happier than you could ever be for yourself... Its like its the day she was born... 

9 times out of 10, he would've forgotten... but she smooths it over for you...

Then one goes around to the rest of the family, touching feet, getting blessed, collecting that little token hundred rupee note from each one...

All your favourite things are cooked on this day... and you're smothered with hugs and kisses from time to time the entire day...

Then comes the evening, with a little rain every time. Out comes the cake and a trail of little utilitarian gifts for school that'll begin in five days... They sing, you make a wish... the same one every year... One went to bed with a sense of having accomplished growth for another year, waiting for the next one already...

But one had begun finding them quite stressful for the past few years... for one no longer lived within those comforting mud walls of no expectation. One had started to become a citizen of the big bad world...With "plans" to make, and "celebrate" the day more to give a bunch of 'there now-now not' friends an excuse to have a night out on town and spend that precious little time with you, it becomes more of a chore... A misguided sense of wanting to do the done thing that everyone does and looking for that elusive story of the ultimate crazy intoxicated birthday to tell for the rest of the year. It is somehow against one's good sense, with no happiness to be found and no wishes to be made... No wishes, because none of the thoughtless morons ever think of getting you a birthday cake... 

With the unhappiness comes the anxiety of growing older by another year and of not accomplishing anything of substance... nothing of value to show for the years one has lived...

Then comes the time when one is used to the big bad world and has their own little niche of warm mud walls...

This time around, there was that familiar knot in the stomach, the nervousness from two days before, like you are afraid you might screw up getting older, but there was no pressure... although one decided one wasn't going to let there be any pressure.

So one went about business as usual...after the rare visit to the temple and making sure the social networks weren't broadcasting around the world that it was your birthday...

One couldn't help not getting sweet stuff for the people at work place... Having a birthday during the summer can make one resentful for not getting to be the one kid not in uniform and actually getting to distribute candy to the entire school...

A regular, noisy, laced with alcohol, good natured lunch with new found friends, going on a wild goose chase for the tree of wisdom and finding it... A walk with one's greatest friend and another random person in the dark wilderness of a park and stumbling on-for the first time in one's life- Glow worms zipping around in the silvery shadows...

A regular day... more fulfilling than others... Lovely, quiet and grown up...

Thank you...