My birthday party

-
My first real birthday party happenned when I was 23 i think.
we celebrated earlier when i was 7/8 . Dad had got a fairy land cake for me from Calcutta and a car for my brother Parin. I was in a royal blue silk frock, all scrubbed and cleaned for the event. Lot of children and relatives invited and room full of people.later all the black and white memories.
So this birthday at 23 was funny. we had moved into a palace like house called Ganeshalay. It was truly amazing. We had not given a house warming party for some time. I had moved back home after 7 years in mumbai. all So we combined it but called it my birthday party. I was thrilled to bits. Super excited. House was clean and shining. Terrace was washed and lit up. All lights lit up. Caterers arrived. I dressed in a saree. People started flocking in on time or rather early. They wanted to come early and spend time with my Gran before the party began. I got two tables full of gifts. Super exciting. One guy my whole building adored gave me Sherlock Holmes ka pura series fat books. I loved them and loved him but never read the books. This guy had a house which we could see from our balcony. Building was V shaped so all balconies you could see without any encroachment into the privacy.
The guy lived in nepal and benaras and came her occassionally on work or else his servant lived in the flat. When he came all girls in the building called each other up. The vigil at the balconies started, in case he came out. He read India Today and we thought he was so intelligent. He never ever looked at any of us or thought all of us to be a bunch of fools.He never came for the birthday.
My cousin said why are you in a saree. Looks like we have come for engagement party rather than a birthday party. I propmtly went and changed.
Was smiling about all the goodies for days to come.
Thank you family and friends.

Comments

  1. vinayNovember 18, 2009 at 5:28 PM

    liked this one a lot.
    beautifully described.

    still not a great supporter of birthday celebration.Maybe cos -
    dont remember celebrating any in a big way, since have been away from folks at home since long.

    but life is a celebration and we should keep looking for occasions to be together , have fun, and thank God for his kindness.

    God bless.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MallikaNovember 19, 2009 at 2:30 PM

    Hi Parul,

    Very well described! I too am super excited about Birthdays n remember to wish promptly.

    Birthdays are special n i too used to have party every year,We still do but now it,s more of a private affair with just the 4 of us,but the phone calls, sms es and wishes make it so much more special!!

    I can smell the Mom-made cake with your description!Aahh!:)

    Love


    Malli

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nange Paon in Navratri

-
When I was working and staying in the hostel, I kind of stopped believing in most festivals and rituals. I thought all this was some weird things which people did, it had no scientific base and why should I follow anyone. In the college hostel, vacations were time to go home and not connected with any festival except Diwali. Sophia College hostel was a cocoon in the heart of South Mumbai. The campus with an old palace building was a quiet oasis with trees and birds, in the mayhem of Mumbai. No festival touched it unless the college celebrated it. The Polytechnic had rock shows and one Dandiya night every year, which it soon stopped having by 1988. Only celebration was the Vegetable Biryani in lunch on Sundays. The Polytechnic hostel did not even believe in pampering the children with food. Memories of bread being there round the clock for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. For them, while the non vegetarians ate eggs for breakfast, the vegetarian had bread. And then when non vegetaria...
Read more

Shraddh period in Hinduism

-
According to the Hindu calendar, this is the shraddh period going on.  For fifteen days in a year, the ancestors are remembered and prayed to. No auspicious events / ceremonies take place in this time. People use the tithi/date of death to invite a Pandit and feed the departed soul. It means you remember the person passed away, give food to the Pandit and the crows. People keep a cooked meal on the terrace. They try to make the favourite food of the departed person. My memories are of my Grandma mixing and crushing all the savouries with her hands and when it was in form of  a paste, my Uncle would go to the terrace and throw the food for the crows. Crows in Hinduism are considered messengers of the departed souls. A lot of people feed Gathiyas to the crows for the full year. If your ancestors are happy, then your life goes well ,is the general belief amongst Hindus. The shraddh period falls exactly between Ganpati and Navratri. One does not buy a house or have...
Read more

Antakshari

-
Today we were playing antakshari at the Holi get together. We did not know any new songs so naturally only the golden melodies were being sung. The whole generation playing antakshari was singing the similar era songs on the alphabets they got. I realised a couple of things. In English language there is no game like Antakshari. How many sentences end with I or The? How can you sing when most songs start with I, The, Once, When and How?I cannot resist explaining the game, we all grow up with, in India. Antakshari means Ant : end , Akshar: alphabet ie last letter of the word. Akshar also means God. It also means God has the last word. Its a game with two teams and we call the teams as  'party'.  We say "Baithey baithey kya karein, karna hai kuchh kaam, shuru karo antakshari , le ka Hari ka naam." Translated from Hindi, We are sitting idle, lets do some work, lets start antakshari, starting with God's name. In Indian games, there is a lot of religion or belief in Go...
Read more