Of birthdays and parties!!!

August - the month of birthdays comes to an end today.

With this comes to an end, one of the jolliest 31 days of the year. One goes to school and with Nursery class accompany the big, colorful birthday boards in the class. Thinking now, it feels like it was the Pareto chart, with 20% (the geeks in you can include September as well) of the year contributing to 80% of the birthdays! Birthdays were a pretty uncomplicated affair in school those days with a customary toffee-ka-packet and an in-chorus 'Happy Birthday to you' song. "But those were the good ol' days", as someone rightly said, we weren't expecting Samsung Notes(read iPads) and Galaxys(read iPhones) as gifts and weren't expected to go to Moshe's(read delicious-food-place) for birthday treats. A gathering of relatives and gali-ke-dost was enough to satiate the party animal needs of us, the chote Home-sapiens then. A balloon full of toffees(again!), a room full of looped ribbons and a cake with x+1 candles(where x was your age) were basically our utmost needs of a budday party.

Times changed.Steve Jobs got a job(back). Bill Gates opened the Windows of life. We realized how stupid we were in celebrating birthdays at home when McDonalds had opened shop next door. The ribbons disappeared. The meenu card shone bright. The wafers disappeared. Chicken McGrill died. Relatives disappeared. Isschool-ke-dost were life. Deodorant and Photo-frame companies made a killing because of the following conversations (atleast in Delhi):

Youthful Kid: "Mom, mere/meri dost ka birthday hai!"
Mom: "Deodorant/Photoframe le ja!"

Yes, photos were printed at that time and yes, we had started to westernize and understand that bodies do smell. 

Times changed. Again. Steve Jobs told us that college was crap. Bill Gates had opened a lot of Windows (5 to be precise). The adolescence had given way to youthful(read Engineering/Others) days. Bumps acquired a meaning more than just travelling on the road to the University. The "mera birthday aane wala hai!" feeling was replaced by "Oh shit! mera birthday aane wala hai! Gaya !#!()@*". The launde wanted a treat(read Daaru party) after kicking your arse out. No ladies ok. Engineering college ok. So daaru it was and Kumar Sanu and Nadeem Shravan/Coldplay and Nirvana(for the RKPites) became the need of the late night hour. 

Yes, "Gale mein laal tie" is a fabulous song when you're drunk.

Here I am writing this piece doing my M.Mgmt. and life just came a full circle. The 25th birthday was celebrated with relatives and office and college-ke-dost. The arse was still kicked. The cake was still cut. The DP still happened. And the cocktail of life got poured to a new glass. Just a tad bigger.