My father never liked birthday celebrations. He had his reasons and most of it being ‘it is not our culture’. Since I grew up hearing this, even I have developed a general hatred towards birthday celebrations and the reasons for my hatred kept adding up every year. I have never liked cakes with icing on them. Don’t really know the reason. Maybe because someone someday told me that all cakes have eggs. Maybe this was also one of the reasons.
Travelling down the memory lane, the first time I remember ‘celebrating’ my birthday was during my 4th std or so, when a selected bunch of family members went to the guindy children’s park and a cake was cut. I don’t really remember whether it was fun or not. But I think I would have remembered had it been fun.
I think it all started when I started to realize that I am getting unwanted attention for just one day in a year and others are being pressured to give importance to me. Before facebook, I used to get only a handful of phone calls and most of it from my family members and very few in-person wishes (my birthday being on a holiday also may be a reason for this). As years passed, the number of family wishes started to reduce. Friends were pressured to wish just because facebook reminded them of my birthday. Then it reduced to text messages. And then people started to not wish If I hadn’t wished them for their birthday. And then there is this pressure to wish someone just because they wished me. Ego started.
My parents were the only people from whom I have received a gift on my birthdays constantly. On rare occasions, I used to get a new dress from a couple of family members. But every year a huge sum is collected from every elderly person I meet. This again I feel is just an unwanted pressure on them. I have got a gift from my friends only a couple of times. This has to be saddest thing you have ever read in your life. I know.
I don’t even care if I get a gift or not for my birthday but I used to gift some of my friends for their birthdays thinking that it was some sort of compulsory thing. I started giving gifts from my 6th std. I used to ask money from my parents (usually not less than 200) and they used to advice me that it is not really necessary that I should gift them. I used to think they were bad people back then until I began to understand what they really meant.
And then I started to think that I need to gift something to my parents for their birthdays. And I did for a couple of years. Then this strange thought occurred to me that gifts are to be bought only from self-earned money. When I gift something to my parents, I’m just acting as a middle-man for them, buying them something from their own money. Then I reduced to just giving ideas for gifts every year.
Probably the only thing that I always felt exciting about birthdays is buying a new dress. I’m not really a fashonista but who doesn’t get excited about new dresses? I always used to buy the dress at least a month before my birthday and pass that whole month staring at that dress and asking my parents if I could wear it just once before my birthday. Then I started to lose interest in dresses too as soon as they stopped boot cut jeans. It has always been my favourite. Then I wasn’t able to wear my favourite dresses anymore due to my corpulence.
Then birthdays became a morning visit to the temple, afternoon visit to the grandparents’ place and a dinner at a hotel nearby. Which is as boring as it can get. As the day always happens to be a holiday, I have never celebrated birthday in my school and only once have I been in my college on my birthday. That was and most probably will be my most memorable birthday ever as I still have marks of the bumps I got that day.
And then there are these surprise parties. I have never got or been a part of them ever. Statistics say that only 2 out of 10 people are surprised during their surprise parties. I just want to convey everyone that unexpected is not equal to surprised. Just imagine if there are some 10 people ‘surprising’ someone on their birthday. Won’t those 10 people expect the same kind of ‘surprise’ for their birthdays? How many actually get those parties?
Not sure if I’m just getting old, but I’ve developed a strong feeling that birthday celebrations are as pointless as bursting crackers during deepavali. Why cut a cake for someone who doesn’t even like cake? Why gather around someone just because his parents invited them for dinner? Why sing the birthday song for someone if you hadn’t planned on wishing him for his birthday? Why celebrate something that is not even worth celebrating? Even though this was said in a perarasu movie, I go with this 100%. It is your parents, especially your mother, who should be celebrating your birthday. You have done absolutely nothing to have the spot light on you this day except for being born.
What exactly is birthday about? Wishing? Exchanging gifts? Wearing new dress? Hating someone for not wishing? I still haven’t figured it out. But I’m still waiting for that overrated celebrations that they show in movies and I hope that it is not somewhere in the near future as I have to just stand there awkwardly with people gathered around me.
P.S. I don’t really care if I get a party or not for my future birthdays. And I apologise if someone got offended by this.