I love Birthdays - mine and others' too. I love Birthdays so much that it's the only other word for which I use the uppercase (capitals) besides I (that's me) God and sometimes even he/she gets the lower case when spoken of in plural or when I am a wee bit mad at them. I know a lot of people who do not get excited about it for different reasons. First , the morose ones - because it actually reminds them they are getting older. I would like to remind them of the time we couldn't wait to get older. When asked how old we were , we rubbed our grubby palms on the front of our frocks or shorts and said four and a half - heck, that half mattered so much to us ; or we said : I will be five in two months , my birthday is coming! Aaah childhood, if only I knew I would regret growing up some day.
Then there are the other ones : deeply dyed in pessimism - they believe that every year brings them closer to The Day - the End . I am quite flummoxed by this variety that lives in denial . Of course there are a whole lot running around who turn their snooty noses and say so what is the big deal about birthdays , it's just another day - there's a whole PhD in psychology waiting to be done on those joyless persons !
Birthday is a wonderful thing - it comes once a year , don't be a killjoy and say so does Christmas or Diwali or whatever day you use as an excuse for binge eating ) it's YOUR own special day. Of course you may be unfortunate enough to share it with some pimply boy cousin or obnoxious shrilly girl cousin or God forbid even a celebrity( unless sharing with a celebrity is your only claim to fame and so you surreptitiously check in Linda Goodman's Sun signs who that is and pathetically preen about it ) . So it is your exclusive day and if you have friends who go back to your frilly bloomers days or your Disney characters pyjama days and they call you and wish you - you can sing tra lalal la for the rest of the day . Someone other than the Guy-in-the-sky loves you ! There is a material part of me that also kicks in , so to avoid major disappointments I make sure that I start announcing a week ahead that the Birthday doth approach to the family members thwarting any plan they may have of escaping from gift-giving. It's quite alright to be a little obvious about it - it happens only once a year . Diwali , Christmas et al , everyone in the family is peering at shop windows , showing pictures online and dropping hints faster than the fast food guy dropping dehydrated french fires into the oil fryer, so that does not count.
Fast foods of the simpler variety , which is fast only in the sense it is quick, is fresh i really love. Hot steaming idlis, crispy dosas, puffed up bhaturas , right off the tawa tikis, ladled off the stove channa , pulled out of oily depth samosas , crispy floating in sugary syrup jalebis , boiling in cauldron kesar milk, tossed in the wok noodles - i have no problem going at them with gusto. . No one dishes out dehydrated idlis , pre-cooked dosas or frozen rotis in those ubiquitous Bhavans and Dhabas .The more complex the name , the higher the budget for the impossibly-ravishing photogenically-perfect mouth-watering advertisements , the more you pay for a meal - the staler it is ; kept at subzero for a long , long time before it is chucked in oil for you to chuck into you.
On the other side are the smarties who are cashing in on the organic rage. Probably grinding the humble lawn grass and peddling as alfa alfa, the I-wouldn't-serve-it-to-the-dogs huge fat grains of all sorts as being good for some condition or the other . There are persons in a parallel universe who want to stay healthy eating all those things you would never even know what they tasted like if your mother didn't dish it out and your father didn't glare and threaten hell. I swear I would never have eaten french fries if I knew they were made from potatoes , I thought for long time they grew like that on trees. I, however, signed a truce with the tuber as it was way better than the rest of the squiggly ugly stuff that was fried or floated in curries and made funny faces at me , mocking me to reject them .
I love getting gifts , like most people but I enjoy giving gifts even more . Of course it gives me an excuse to shop and thereby buy all the bags, belts, shoes , stoles, dupattas, shirts, trousers, leggings, jeggings and lingerie I definitely do not need ; but more importantly , it provides me the impetus to plan a major strategy. It's never a simple pick up a gift thing for me - oh that would be sacrilegious . Every time you feel tempted to do that grab-a-gift-and-wrap-and-shove-into- giftee thing , think about receiving a sad wooden dolphin with a clock in it's belly that beeped every hour. I actually did get it and as much as I love karma because it is a bitch , even I draw a line on recycling such horrendous offerings to my bitterest enemy. I still remember how I pretended that I kept forgetting to take the gigantic I LOVE O......CITY ceramic mug which weighed a ton. After dinner , thinking I was rid of it I smiled gracefully at the host , until she placed it next to me in the back seat . It clung to me like the Old Man fastened himself to Sinbad's back . All night it beamed at me from the side table and in the morning ( when I put a towel over it ) , I devilishly grinned as I the left it behind in the room when I checked out . The honest bellboy chased after the airport taxi waving it to me but I ignored him like a diva ignoring the mongrel. Phew that was so close !
So now I trot off to stuff myself with chocolate cake and unwrap the goodies................
More MindBlast next Monday
No comments:
Post a Comment