Birthday 2023

Thanks everyone for your wonderful birthday wishes. Completely flabbergasted, floored and flattered by the number of wishes approaching 500 on Facebook and still counting. Also pleasantly overwhelmed by the overwhelming number of wishes on Whatsapp. To be honest, I enjoyed my rock star celebrity moment however short lived it may be. Thanks for those being so creative to create a story for me on Facebook on the occasion of my birthday. I can only write crap, can't be creative like you to create a story.

My finger almost ached while responding to all your wishes, yet I never got tired of it. In case I inadvertently failed to do so - once again a big THANK YOU to all of you for your lovely wishes. At peak in one particular time frame, Birthday wishes popped up every other minute on my timeline. No sooner I thanked one, than another Birthday wish was on pipeline. A "Like" option makes it a whole lot easier to respond. A like👍 on Facebook represents a lot of feelings - I really LIKE the wish, an acknowledgement that I read your wish or simply a thank you note - thanks to the smart and innovative Facebook Engineers who created the "like" button.

Per Western Astrology I have the same zodiac Sun sign Gemini as every one else who is born between May 21 and June 20. Geminians are considered to be good communicators and tend to be popular in social circles. At the same time Geminians are known to be fickle, restless and mercurial in nature. It is the sign of twins. They get well along with  their co-Geminians, Librans and Aquarians.

On a lighter note Geminians tend to be popular among opposite sex, the famous Geminian examples are John F Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Angelina Jolie vindicate this fact. Not necessarily all Geminians are Casanova, but many I know having this star sign end up in love marriages (a term used in India for those marrying after falling in love or in self negotiated marriages).

Years ago when I joined Facebook as a tyro, a relatively late entrant to Mark Zuckerberg's wild Jurassic Park. Yet in wildest of my dreams I never thought of seeing this day. (A la Spielberg's Jurassic park, though aware of the monstrous Dinosours, everybody visits and revisits Facebook). I got to admit, ever since I have been on Facebook, I have been bitten by this Birthday bug and the numerous wishes always flatter me in epidemic proportion. 

Prior to the age of social media, wishes used to come only from a few close friends and family members via phone or Birthday cards. Now with Facebook reminder, floodgate of wishes has opened, inching towards 600 count as I write this blog and belated wishes pour in. After all, expectations makes us to expect more, damn my human nature.

One more birthday, one more year tagged to my life. Call it a mid life crisis or mid life blues, it is a stark reminder that body and mind, if not the spirit, goes downhill from here, tasks become uphill and years are numbered before I go over the hill. This birthday is just another day, a stark reminder and a reality check. Myriad wishes on phones, e-mails and social media has left me with a bloated sense of self glorification. In reality it barely changes anything, life just trudges ahead.

During my childhood, on our birthdays my mom would pray and cook KHEER (a sweet dish) for us. An additional luxury could be a special dish from her kitchen. Those days birthdays were tame affairs sans balloons, cake cuttings or any kind of fanfare. It's still the same for me.

We grew up in a collective society where our identity is more qualified by lineage, village, caste, community and so on (many South Indians and Punjabis have their village names tagged to their name. For example - for P. Ravi Kumar, P could be the first initial of the man's native village. For a Sikh named Jagjit Singh TALWANDI, the last part is the name of his PIND, or village). 

I or Me as an individual always came last after the society, village, city or district. Unlike the current generation, it was the norm for most parents of our time to have more than two kids. On top of that many lived in joint families who shared the same roof and celebrated thirteen festivals in twelve months. Birthdays of an individual rarely made into the priority list, always put in the back burner. 

But things in India are changing fast with rapid urbanization. The bonding built as a result of long term fusion of Nuclear families is fast dissipating by fission. DITK (Double Income Two Kids) is the new normal, prominently proclaimed by the rise in birthday celebrations as the harbinger of neo individualism. While I hardly celebrate my birthday, my son plans ahead for months to celebrate his. It is quite understandable. For him growing up in America where individualism rules the roost, his birthday is a matter of celebration. 

No wonder in US they make a big deal about Birthdays. Years back one fine morning no sooner I entered my work place, than I found it nicely decorated with balloons proclaiming "HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY". Half dozen teammates barged in, singing an impromptu Happy B'day song. A cake was cut. I had my few minutes of fame. They gave me a funny card signed with something like "Why Men Turn Naughty After Forty" printed on it. (Americans make a lot of fuss about celebrating occasions, liberally punching them with dosages of humor. We in India are fast catching up).

I forced myself a smile by fully exposing my phalanx of my 32 teeth and took a snap with them. Yet it was a stark reminder that being 40 in Chemistry lingo I have already reached the half life period, a la radioactive elements. In ancient India at this age people use to take VANAPRASTA (preparation towards retirement). In modern age life begins after middle age. Thanks again for your birthday wishes.