Birthday Recollections

Sandhya Vasudev

Even though each one has a birthday, not everyone gets to celebrate it. I feel grateful as I have been one of those fortunate who do celebrate the birthday of a dear one which is a much awaited event by all the participants, more so by the ‘star of the day’. The word ‘star’ kindles my memories, as I used to have a different birthday each year, which used to amuse my classmates. How could they understand that my orthodox parents celebrated on the day when the birth star nearing the thithi appeared? The star would sometimes even come up in the preceding month! A new dress and a sweet called “paayasa”(a liquid dish made of green/bengal grams, jaggery and coconut milk) would be invariably prepared by my mother. The  birthday eve would see me coming home from school with rising excitement. 

I would quickly freshen up and off I would go with my super senior brother to select chocolates for distribution the next day. The experience is deliciously unforgettable as the retailer used to give me yummy chocolates to taste and decide. An evening party would be arranged from my secondary school years, and I remember that those of the high school years were planned entirely by me. There would be an abundance of food - both home-made and a few savouries from our very own popular hotel. After satisfactory consumption of the mouth watering array of dishes, I would take my friends, a noisy crowd of around twelve to fifteen girls, to my brother’s room upstairs. Amidst rising excitement, dance music would be played on the gramophone (which was my s. s. brother’s prized possession) and everybody would shake a leg to the beat. It was such fun, and laughter filled the room. 

After marriage I soon discovered that the husband had been born on a special day according to the lunar calendar and so the celebrations trebled as I would celebrate according to the star and Gregorian calendar too. As his birth date had been wrongly mentioned in the records, the office celebration would be the fourth one of the year. I managed to do the same for my two girls but soon the ‘star-day’ became tough to keep track of in my hectic life and only the Gregorian remained.

 I remember how each of my daughters would anticipate the celebrations as any child ought to do. That day would be a riot of chocolate distribution at school, with a birthday song being sung by the class to the heroine in colour dress, who would then be allowed to skip a period to distribute chocolates to all the teachers in the various classrooms and the teachers’ room. 

Teachers always merited two chocolates. It was my story all over again! The plan for the birthday bash menu and its preparation - along with a local help - would commence and the look of excited anticipation on the face of my kids gave me a thrill unparalleled. A few games would be organized by me, complete with prizes and return gifts, much to the children’s delight. Nowadays all such activities are often handed over to event management businesses or arranged at hotels, and the actual hosts need to just smile and have a whale of a time along with the guests. 

The spirit of the celebration remains the same, only the format may have changed.