Happy Birthday

My 28th birthday was pretty eventful. Birthdays are generally another of those things about which I don’t lose much sleep over. Yes, there are some people whose birthdays I can’t (afford to) forget but I can count them in the fingers of my right hand. There’s nothing that I have against it. I think it’s a charming practice and all that and it gives us another reason to get in touch with people who were, are, or we wish were an important part of our lives. But when push comes to shove, I always seem to have other things on my mind. Like that day, when I had to get a haircut, or when I had take Jenny to the service station.

Due to such bad behavior, I could generally count the number of people who remember my b’day and take the trouble to let me know that they did with the help of half of my fingers of my left hand, give or take a half. But we live in a networked world now. Orkut reminds the 77 people that I am connected to on its website about my birthday from 15 days in advance. My company, which has the details of my date of birth, announces its privy knowledge gleefully to the 1000 people within my business unit. Yahoo! Groups is obviously not left far behind.

As a result I was quite flattered with the number of messages, emails and smses which found their way into my various inboxes and thanked all of them. There were also at least two cakes, which had my name on it. One of them also had some of my face on it. I think I acquit myself rather well those couple of days, without resorting to my usual frowning countenance at being fussed over. I am 28 now, remember. Even irksome chimpanzees pick up certain social skills in this time.

Anyway, I was in Chennai that day. Went jogging on the Marina in the morning (There’s a half marathon in Hyderabad later this month. Let’ s see.) In the evening, treated myself to ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ after I am sure the whole world had already watched it. I liked it, I guess, but I had higher expectations. Personally, I don’t think it’s a patch on ‘Munnabhai MBBS’. The characters were etched out a lot better in the original. At least I felt about it that way.

Other memories of my birthdays-

Age 7-Dad delivering a biscuit tin (he worked in a company, which made biscuits) to my school. Most birthday kids generally brought toffees to distribute to their classmates. Dad thought it was a great idea. It would make me stand out and all that. Of course I was mortified for the same reason.

Age 12- Lunch at Gaylord, Connaught place in Delhi. My sister and I got two choices for our birthday celebrations. I always chose the lunch. She would throw the party.

Age 18- Bumps at midnight at ISBT in New Delhi. A motley group of college students going home and a moment of indiscretion.

Age 24- A disc in Juhu, Bombay. Bunch of management trainees. I had money in the bank and knew how to jive.

29thOctober. In case you missed it this year.