The Un-birthday Post!

I was definitely not looking forward to this birthday! In my opinion, (And I sound so un-Dev Anand like here), there comes a time in one's life when one reaches the conclusion that there is absolutely no reason to be thrilled each time you get a year older! 

I reached that point this year! 

First I had done nothing spectacular, achieved nothing important, hadn't lost even one single gram during the entire year and learnt nothing worth mentioning; so there was nothing really to celebrate! 

Secondly, there were a host of questions plaguing me and I didn't have a decent answer to any of them!

Do I want to attempt my hand at writing or get back to advertising/ market research? Ummmm......um.....umm......

Do I want to take up further studies? Hmmmm...maybe...but...

What do I want to study - something useful and life changing like psychology or something more for the soul like Art History? Errr..... well.... not really sure! 

Do I want to get back to work full time or part time? Oh, wait!!! I haven't thought that through!!! 

So you see, the clock was ticking and here I was, still clueless about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life!

But then, before I could deal with this whole 'getting older and having nothing to show for it' thing, came the unkindest cut of them all - my younger sister gleefully pointed out that I had been miscalculating my age (a Freudian slip or a desperate attempt at hanging on to a fantasy???) and that I am actually a year older than I had convinced myself I was! Damn those sisters!!! Always jumping in to correct you when you least want  them to! 

So basically, an entire year that I been assuming I had to myself, to work on the dreams, achieve the goals, to travel, to spoil, to pamper, to enjoy, to celebrate, yada yada yada, was gone in a flash. 

Poof! Just like that!!! 

Damn! Damn!! Damn!!! Took me a few days to work through my misery and to accept reality for what it was. In the process, I decided to put down this very 'Unbirthday Post' for fellow sufferers going through a similar quandary,. This is a ready reckoner of sorts, of some of the tell tale signs that signal the end of wanting a birthday celebration. 

Now if while reading this, you find yourself nodding vigorously or feeling a strong sense of kinship with me, you'll know that the days when you took leave from work, wore pretty clothes and partied & drank through the night to celebrate getting older and wiser are now a thing of the past! 

So here are my top ten tell tale signs- 

1. You don’t bother to wait for your husband to surprise you with flowers. Instead you warn him a few days in advance, that if he values his life and his sanity, he should make a trip to the nearby florist and pre-order some so that you can get them on your birthday!

Flowers on demand : I demanded them.
Threatened the husband with dire consequences and
gave him, once again, detailed instructions on how to get them delivered in his absence 

Note I : Now when I was in my twenties, I just sat around, moped and endlessly hoped the hubby had atleast one measly surprise planned for me. More often than not the surprise was the absence of one or a call that went something on the lines of "Hey, I am buying a 'surprise' cake for your birthday (!!!). Tell me where should I go? And yes, what was that flavour you like?"!!!! 

But once you are older, wiser, you learn to sweep aside those nebulous notions of romance and say "to hell with waiting"! You learn that it is just so much more efficient, and not to mention less trauma inducing for both parties, to just cut through the frills, get to the bottom of the problem, take charge and demand what you want or better still buy it yourself and charge it to the husband!

Note II : These acts of taking charge also includes situations wherein you go shopping for the ingredients for your own cake and then come home and bake it! (Yes I know it sounds real pathetic, but let me tell you it is a far better option to the something that the hubby will invariably pick up from the shelf of Marks & Spencer; always at the last minute! Far more sensible to have something you actually like and approve of!)

2. You spend a good part of an evening, carefully Photo Shopping those gigantic eye bags from under your eyes and the ever growing web of wrinkles around your mouth, before you post your latest Facebook profile picture! And then instead of being embarrassed about the depths you have reached, you actually feel thrilled when people compliment you on it! 

3. Your target of becoming “Fabulous at 40” seems no longer like a wee little blimp on the horizon that you are pleasantly strolling towards. Instead it seems to be coming hurtling towards you faster than those calamitous, cataclysmic meteorites that abound every self respecting science fiction movie; and with every intention of wrecking an equal amount of annihilation and havoc!! 

4. You realise your standard conversations at the butcher’s are with a group of 50 and 60 something yrs old and you nod vigorously and agree each time one of them begins a sentence with, “In our day and age”. 

5. The spam mail that you receive, starts getting to be less about random sex toys and more about hair loss treatments!!! 

6. When you cannot keep your eyes open post 11pm on a Saturday night and your idea of sleeping late on a weekend morning involves waking up at 9am! 

7. You spend more time discussing alcohol than drinking it! And when you find that even a sniff of wine these days ends up making you tipsy;  and the days of starting a holiday in Goa with vodka for breakfast, seem more like a fantasy that happened to someone else! 

8. You no longer feel mad at Sachin Tendulkar (or whatever celebrity your share your day with) for hogging all the limelight on your special day. Instead you adopt a resigned air about the whole thing, hope and pray that people who remember that you happen to share the same day, are not insensitive enough to attempt to calculate your age! 

9. Instead of staying up till 00.00hrs in the am to see who amongst your family or friends called you first to wish you, your priority instead is a long hoat soak in the bath tub and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep with your phone on silent mode! 

10. When the highlight of your special day is not the flowers or the calls or the presents or the countless wishes you received, but the fact that your soon to be 3 yr old, who has until now steadfastly refused to be toilet trained, calls you for the very first time and says “Me go potty, Mamma come to toilet!”. And when you end up thanking the Almighty and saying that, that was the best birthday gift one could have hoped for!!!

That, my friends, is when you know, you are done for!!! 

Mother cooked Mishti pulao (sweet rice) and mutton kosha (mutton in a thick, heavenly gravy) 

Mishti Pulao

Mutton curry

A drop dead gorgeous amethyst necklace from Kaleidoscopus sent by the Sis

Nevertheless, must admit, list or not, I did end up having an unexpectedly good time! 

- The boys kept hugging and kissing me and singing Happy Birthday every 5 minutes, which continued well into the wee hours of the night! Woke up a few times in the night when I heard a noise in the baby monitor only to find V2, who is not one to shy away from PDA, singing 'Happy birthday Mamma' in his sleep!
- The cake was a total disaster, twice! Finally I stopped pretending to be both - a baker and a sensible woman, let the Mother buy me some panna cottas from the nearby Italian bakery, which we then proceeded to stick candles into, for the boys to blow!

- The Mother surprised me with one of my all time favourite food for breakfast - the Bengali samosa, stuffed with potatoes, cauliflowers and green peas. Her menu of surprises continued through the day, sending me gulping down Pudin Hara (a medicine to aid digestion and prevent acidity) before and after every meal. 

- And the hubby sent flowers to make up for his absence. Well he was coerced into it, but in my book, there are times when the end does justify the means and in this case, the end was really very beautiful and worth the means indeed! 

And to add to the positive side, realised that the year that went by wasn't as bad as it seemed - 

- I moved into a place I always imagined living in - complete with my dream come true camellia and rose bushes and apple trees in the yard!

- Got myself my very first hot pink trench coat and a pair of insane neon blue and red polka dotted wellibobs! And not to mention all the shopping I did to prepare myself for the cold climes of London.

- Progressed from being a Farmville farmer to growing my first ever real flowers  and vegetables!

- Took to blogging more seriously and got to know quite a few amazing fellow bloggers whose blogs I really  enjoy!

- Renewed my love affair with my camera after a gap of almost 2 yrs!

- Got my very own Rainbows and Cloudbursts page on FB!

- Became the proud owner of a fancy new Nikon 60mm f2.8 G ED lens, one that blew a sizeable hole in  Vj's pocket, as he likes to keep reminding me! 

- And not to mention, enjoyed a beautiful, happy, healthy, accident free and a relatively peaceful year (as peaceful as one can have with 2 human cannonballs on the loose!)

Now that counts for something!

So till the next one comes along and brings along its own set of angst, I would like to leave you with this 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" ~ Mark Twain