Since over a decade my birthday has become an event of sorts. It all started with a dear childhood friend who flew down to spend a few days and celebrate my birthday with me. My sisters and family would also be around. And on the actual day a few local friends would drop by and we’d end up being a group of highly inebriated people, eating, drinking, senseless talking, dancing, singing etc.
One of the years we did multiple shots along with our regular drinks, which of course had us so high that after a point everything was hazy. Including the pictures that were taken. We named it the 'epic year' and since then we’ve been slightly more mature but not considerably.
As time went by the group of people that would come down and spend near a week with me for my birthday grew, with friends and family flying in from across the country and in 2019, my niece from the US also joined us. It had now became an international affair. What used to be an unplanned week became much more, with my Man Friday and I making the menu and sourcing the ingredients for every meal ahead of time, meals being sponsored from restaurants we love, additional household help being hired, a WhatsApp group that would plan flights so multiple people would land in Bangalore around the same time, logistics, sleeping arrangements at my sisters place, since my 3 bedrooms were no longer enough etc. We joked about hiring a ‘Birthday Planner’ maybe the next year.
This however, is not the silly thing that makes me happy. This is a huge thing that makes me extremely joyous. It’s probably my favourite week of the year and I feel truly blessed for having all these people in my life.
Sadly the next year was the year of the pandemic that continues to screw up our lives and our minds. Thanks to which the birthday event could not happen last year. Instead everyone was masked up or cooped up in their homes. A multi hour virtual call where a cake was cut and drinks were drunk was the best we could do. And while it wasn’t close to the experience of all of us being together, thank goodness for technology. My sister and nephew drove down from Chennai, my sister and family in Bangalore organised a little party and we made the best of what we had.
On the morning of my birthday last year, I was sitting in my living room, answering the many calls and texts that I was getting when all of a sudden two sunbirds came into my balcony.
I should probably talk about my balcony a little bit here. Unlike most balconies that have plants and flowers, my balcony has trees. I have two large frangipani trees and a lime tree with a mango tree thats grown to about 3 feet or so now. There are also smaller to mid-size plants all over, which makes the entire space very lush green.
Unfortunately until that day, as far as I was aware, the only birds (pests) that would visit my balcony were pigeons, who we were always trying to get rid of. Occasionally there would be butterflies but never any other birds. And then on the morning of my birthday, these two sunbirds hopped from branch to branch, having conversations with each other (and I like to think) attempting to communicate with me. As sneakily as I could, I got up from the couch and brought my camera from the other room, worrying the entire time that I would scare them off.
And while I couldn’t get the greatest shots since I had to observe them from a distance and with them constantly moving, they stayed on and kept playing. The mini forest in my balcony has been around for a few years now but I’d never had these visitors earlier. Were they trying to fill in for the folks that didn’t have the freedom to fly in that these beautiful creatures had? Were they the carrier of wishes from the group that couldn’t make it to our annual event? I like to romanticise things so thats what I believed and its what I continue to believe.
It may sound silly but for me it was a big deal. Silly things make me happy and thats what matters eventually. There are always degrees of joy that we feel. While it may not have made me as happy as travel does, it certainly made me happier than material acquisitions.
I don’t need the big home, the swanky automobile or an expensive phone. Just give me more of the silly joys that I can treasure, store in my memory and smile about forever! Meanwhile, I have my fingers crossed that we can at least have a portion of the group back in my home this year, bringing back a sense of normalcy and loads of laughter.
