Birthday! When?

Birthdays seem to come and go without even giving me time to realise that I am getting a year older. They aren’t as exciting as they used to be. People wish me at midnight, ask for treat at dawn and I get gifts in return. That’s it. The rest of the day is the same as every day.

As a kid, I had soo much to look forward on the special day. The one day in the whole year when you get to show off your brand new ‘colour’ dress in school. And then there are chocolates. I remember one birthday when I dragged my dad from one supermarket to another in quest of Cadbury diarymilk’s eclairs crunchy.

The day would usually start with a ‘Happy birthday’ from either mom or dad while waking me up. I would be fully awake in seconds and start getting ready for school. The phone would start ringing soon, and I would blabber thank yous to cousins and aunts with mouth full of toothpaste. Amma would have made my favourite breakfast and lunch. Sometimes she would have also made a beautiful colour kolam especially for the occasion. The best part of course was the day in school. Even unknown students would smile and wish me. The whole class would sing ‘happy birthuday to you’. My friends would try to get as many chocolates as possible from the dabba while I would chid them saying ‘hey wait till I distribute it to everyone then it is all yours’. Even my worstu enemy would smile and wish me in hopes of getting extra chocolates. Then the ultimate dilemma, I get to choose only one of my bestest friends to accompany me distribute chocolates to all the teachers in school (and bunking first period). And I never did homeworks on birthdays because I knew I would be excused with an ‘Oh it’s your birthday. Alright submit it tomorrow without fail.’
And evening it would be either tip to temple and dinner at hotel which translates to kaima idly (and sometimes ghee roast) at Hotel Saravana Bhavan or cake cutting with cousins and neighbour kids. The day would end with falling asleep in front of television waay past bedtime. It would have been a long and eventful day.

As I grew older, I had cut down things one by one. No more colour dress to school (decided this in 8th) thinking I am too old from that. No more temple trips, I am too cool for that (no idea when this happened). No more strangers wishing me (no would know it is my birthday unless I tell them). No more looking forward birthdays just for the sake of it and not for gifts. Now birthdays aren’t as long as they used to be. Nothing exciting ever happens on birthdays. It is the same as every day except that I get my favourite food and gifts from friends.