Happy Birthday to Me

This is one of the problems with being a blog writer. No body is going to write and dedicate a blog in your honour on your birthday. Alas, such an honour also the blogger has to do himself!

Having said so, one must thank the social media and especially Face Book for making you feel that you are the most popular guy around. Thanks to their advance notification, I have started getting birthday posts right from today! I am sure most of the wishers failed to read the fine print that it’s an advance notification for 28th May; they just went through the motions of wishing an acquaintance happy birthday!

But it’s rather mean of me to go into such intricacies rather than acknowledging spirit behind these wishes! They at least took some time out of their precious FB and WhatsApp surfing time to wish me happy birthday!

I belong to a generation and family where birthdays were one of those days when the birthday boy was granted exemption not to study, go out to have dosa and at best catch up a new Bollywood release. Of course, no friend or relative would remember the day as there was no FB and gifts were unknown! From that day to this day, it’s a different feeling. Apart from wishes over FB, Messenger, WhatsApp and Twitter, there are cakes, flowers and candles- mostly virtual but some from very close acquaintances, real!

So while celebrations have become much more hyped and pronounced, the number is increasingly becoming disconcerting! While the above described listless low key birthdays of childhood and youth in some sense led to a magical number – teenage, completing teens, 25, 35, 45- all very important milestones, the birthday of tomorrow leads to none too impressive number – 57! It’s definitely not representative of youth, but it’s too early to qualify one for senior citizen privileges! You are retiring but not anytime too soon! You are not free but not tearing busy either! You don’t feel like seeing any Bollywood movie, though eating any food still remains a weakness! Everything is somewhere in between – neither too late but not not bang on time either!

So I am not going to get into any thought that conflicts with my zeal to enjoy my birthday! I shall have good time and that’s what matters! I will accept good wishes from friends and family, eat good food, take a break and live the moment ! After all 57 is just a number and any student of mathematics can tell you that number line is infinitely long! For something that’s infinite, why should we make our joy of living finite!

Thanks for wishes to all my readers in advance! Some of them will have to exert themselves to wish me here on Word Press as also on FB and possibly WhatsApp! But don’t worry, I will count them as three wishes and say Thank you three times😀