My Birthday My Day....

Completely unaware of the significance of the day, I started on a usual note. But, I was the only one behaving in a usual way; everyone else was greeting me differently today. It all started with an early morning call at 12.15 am from Uganda- my Renu bua was on phone to greet me on my birthday; she was the first one to do so. Next morning, I found myself under a flurry of hugs, kisses, pecks and birthday greetings with my mom, papa, dada and dadee showering it all over me......... I was enjoying all the attention and love......

My dada instructed everyone to get ready as our priest was due to arrive early for my birthday prayers (pooja) - my dada and dadee organised it. I was the first one to get ready and got busy with my “picking and throwing” routine.
Soon, our priest arrived and started performing pooja (prayers).

I kept shifting between everyone’s lap seated with folded hands.......
My dadee offered sweets and pakoras to the Lord. It is a Garhwali tradition to cook pakoras made of daal (lentils) and offer them to the Lord during prayers and celebrations. As soon as prayers got over, we assembled for our breakfast of delicious pakoras and parathas .

My dada and dadee left for market soon thereafter to fetch my birthday cake and my gift- a nice pink coloured blanket. As my nana- nanee, mausa- mausee and mama-mamee were planning to come over in the evening, my dada and dadee came back early enough to make preparations for dinner. My papa got busy decorating the house with balloons while my dada, dadee and mom cooked dinner; obviously with assistance from Santoshi didi.

Later in the evening, I wore my new birthday dress that my mom and papa had bought a day before my birthday. My nana-nanee and others arrived on time for cutting of my birthday cake.......I was visibly excited standing in front of my birthday cake..........
My papa captured my cake cutting ceremony on his camera phone........you must watch out for the sight of me eating cake from knife itself......


It would have been nice to have my Rudra bhai and Ridhima didi by my side when I had cut that cake but they made up for that by wishing me on phone. You know both of them were holding their papa’s phones to join me for my cake cutting ceremony over phone- a technological gift.......I got some real gifts too as my nana-nanee gave me a pair of ear-rings while my mausa-mausee presented me a beautiful dancing doll.....

It was time to serve dinner as my papa was scheduled to catch his train to Delhi at 11pm. For a change, I also ate my dinner sitting on the dining chair instead of my usual chair.......sign that I have definitely grown up.......

Oh yes! My unit of measurement of age also changed from month to year........