It's a party; it's my birthday!

Celebrate your special day no matter how old you get; it's a chance to share new experiences with those you love

 

You would think that, being embedded deep in the bowels of middle age, I would have lost interest in celebrating my birthday (what with it bringing intimations of my mortality ever closer every year). And you would be quite wrong to do so.

 

The truth is that no matter how old I get – and I really don’t want to dwell on that! – I still get ridiculously excited when my birthday starts looming on the horizon. Months in advance I start pestering my husband to make special plans. I usually have a destination in mind (suitably exotic; preferably Italian) but the rest is up to him. The brief is: Surprise Me! (To his credit, he always does.) And no sooner have I boarded the plane back home than I begin thinking of how I could possibly top this the following year. 

 

I know, I know, at my age I should know better. Each birthday is now actually a marker that brings me closer to the end of my days. But honestly, in all the excitement of exploring Angkor Wat or climbing up Mount Etna or exploring the beaches of Barcelona, I quite forget to count my years. All I know is that I feel ridiculously alive on this day of all others – and what could be more worthy of celebration than that?

 

Partly, of course, this is a reaction to my childhood. I grew up in a spartan household in which birthdays weren’t really treated as particularly special. As a child I don’t remember ever having a birthday party or even cutting a cake. Instead, I would be hauled out of bed and sent off to bathe first thing in the morning so that I could celebrate my birthday in the only way my parents and grandparents approved of. And that consisted of sitting down in the puja room with a thali full of grains, pulses, fruits, vegetables, mithai and a little cash, saying a little prayer and then sending off the goodies to the nearby temple.

 

In school, too, there was a very austere atmosphere in place thanks to the nuns who ran things. So, all you were allowed to do on your birthday was to get a bag of sweets which you could then distribute to the rest of your class just before recess (just two sweets, mind you, any more would have been regarded as most sinful!). Maybe the other kids in my class went home to birthday cakes and balloons but, alas, I was never invited to be part of proceedings.

 

Which is, perhaps, why I am always astonished by the lengths parents of today go to celebrate their kids’ birthdays. They hire party venues, get the clowns in, maybe even a DJ, there are endless snacks and the return gifts are more amazing than anything I ever scored at my own birthday as a child.

 

Not that it’s gifts that interest me on this day. Thankfully, I am past that stage when I would salivate over a particular handbag and drop copious hints that it would make a great present. Now, it’s new and amazing experiences that I crave for, and the gift of being able to share them with the man I love.

 

And, of course, it helps if we do this in a scenic corner of the world. It is my birthday, after all!