A birthday to remember

There are two kinds of Saturdays in my life. Saturdays which start early, where I go for a walk, read the movie reviews, have breakfast with family, complete all my chores in the morning, and enjoy my afternoon curled up with a book. And then there are Saturdays where I don't get up till ten, have a late lonely breakfast, lounge around till lunchtime, sleep off the afternoon, watch movies in bed, and walk around the house like I'm on sedatives. It's either one of these for me, no middle ground.

Yesterday morning, I woke up late, intending to spend the morning lazing on the bed. I had forgotten about the birthday party. On being reminded by Mom, I gave a last longing look at the bed, and grudgingly got dressed.

I'm not a huge fan of social calls. I don't normally like going to marriages and family functions, unless I know for sure people I know and like are going to be there. The simple reason for this is that I get bored in such gatherings. Men discuss politics and cricket, women wash themselves in gossip and recipes. It's always the same. And lately it's gotten worse; wherever I go, I'm greeted with the familiar query "So, when're you getting married?" Well, duh. When I find a guy.

So, for all the above mentioned reasons, I was not ecstatic when I found myself in Vijayanagar with my Dad yesterday morning.

We parked at my aunt's place, and decided to leg it from there. My Dad was already hopping on one foot. "The invitation clearly said 'Cake cutting at 11:30A.M' We're half an hour late!" My Dad doesn't like being late. For anything. I tried to explain to him the necessity of being fashionably late sometimes. "It's a party, hardly anyone's on time" I told him. He refused to listen, and just got more and more agitated, as we went on searching for the place.

We had to walk a long way and ask a lot of people to find it, but find it we did, in the end*. It was already 12:30P.M when we entered the hall. "See", I told my Dad with a triumphant hand on his shoulder, "there are hardly any guests". My Dad simply shrugged and went to wish the hosts.

I wished the hosts, paid my greetings to the people I knew, got introduced to some new people, and then sat down to do some serious people watching. The birthday girl, my one year old niece Ayushi, looked rather cute in a pink dress, pink shoes, and a pink hairband. Her parents, my cousins were waiting for more guests to arrive before cutting the cake. Ayushi, meanwhile was getting crankier by the minute.

While we waited, my aunt, my uncle and I chitchatted about this and that. I started observing my niece and wondering about my first birthday party. My parents apparently hosted this gala event on my 1st birthday. I've seen photos, and heard accounts of it, but for the life of me I can't remember it. "Of course you can't silly, you were only one!", I said to myself. But then what's the point of a 1st year party if you can't remember it? I wondered if Ayushi was aware that this was a special day. Maybe. She just looked sleepy and irritated.

Finally, enough number of guests had arrived; the cake cutting could commence. All the kids of the party were rounded up, given pointy hats to wear and made to pose for the camera along with the birthday girl. I couldn't believe my eyes when a pair of pink butterfly wings and a pink wand was brought out. Talk about overkill! Ayushi was attempting in every way to get out of the costume. Attagirl, I cheered her telepathically. But I had to admit, after she was fit into all those contraptions, she looked kind of cute. Babies can pull of any kind of outfit, however ridiculous. They make any fashion choice look good.

As soon as the birthday song began to play, however, the girl in pink decided that enough was enough and began to wail loudly. It took 5 minutes and some "Ooh, look here Ayushi!" and "Look there baby!" to stop her crying.

Soon, there was along line of guests waiting to wish her. They'd brought her gifts in all shapes and sizes, but I was amused to notice that she held on firmly and happily only to an envelope containing money.

During the buffet lunch I was bored. My aunts were discussing people they knew, my uncles were also discussing people they knew. I tried listening in, but I didn't know they people they were talking about, so it didn't make for very interesting gossip. I sighed, and wondered again why I attend these gatherings. Oh yes, for the food, I thought, as I bit into a bonda.

Finally, the last round of wishes, do-come-to our-house's and byes. As I turned to leave, I was introduced by Dad to a lady with a positively alarming smile on her face. "You remember me? You were this small when I saw you last time!", she said, making a rounding her palms to the size of a football. Erm, first of all, only Thumbelina would've been that small, and secondly, if I was that small when we met last time, how would I remember you, lady? In answer I just gave her what I think is my enigmatic smile.

* Directions:

I've always felt that Bangaloreans, when asked for directions, absolutely hate to say 'I don't know'. We give many kinds of answers - vague pointings in opposite directions, long winded dialogues, downright lies - anything, rather than expressing our ignorance about the city. My word of advice(based on experience) to people asking for directions in Bangalore: ask shopkeepers. Not that they will say "Sorry, I don't know" if they don't know. But the probability is high that they actually will know.