Tj
“Happy birthday to you” * 720 times and cutting at least 3-4 cakes used to be the norm on every 09/11 for the last 4/5 years of my life if I was not travelling outside India. My parents and my lil’ sis, Sneha would get a cake delivered to me, my ex-girlfriend would get one and try and surprise me with a nice dinner at my favourite restaurant or get my friends together for a midnight party, my colleagues would try to smash some cake on my face (I absolutely hate cake facials), my best friends (especially Rahul) from college/business school in the same city would get me one and my apartment mates would not want to lag behind so they would order one too. What do you think all this resulted in? Most people would say happiness. It did make me feel happy, special and popular however all of this resulted in 3 major things; 1) the numerous cakes would take up all the space in the refrigerator and our poor cook would not know where to store food that was cooked for us every day, 2) my apartment mates and I would have to go through a cake diet for the next week or so to the extent that we would hate every word starting with ‘C’ and most flavours from mango to chocolate would taste the same for the next several weeks, 3) it was a sure shot way to become diabetic. The phone calls, the texts, Whatsapp messages and Facebook wishes would take me a week to respond to (I used to reply to each one of them) and sometimes they would turn into conversations. Pretty usual, huh?
In 2016, I did not want it to be usual anymore. Something had snapped inside me in 2015 when I had a family dinner with my parents and sister at one of our favourite restaurants in Delhi after I had spent the whole day with my recently ‘ex’ girlfriend. I am weird and she is weird too. We were best friends and it seemed perfect to be around her going from place to place like we used to. It was sometime during that day I realized the futility of going absolutely bonkers on my birthday so much so that when I sat down to eat dinner with the family my mom asked me why I was so distracted. She was scared I was still upset and hurting from the break-up. We had a lovely dinner and as a family discussed how it would be if my birthday was different next year. Something better, something more genuine and grand. No, I do not mean a foreign trip or a crazy expensive weekend at a luxurious resort. What about making a change? My mom is extremely philanthropic. We are not super rich however all her life she has managed to do good for people around her. Teaching kids for free, funding students’ education, giving up her career for her two kids who turned out to be as horrible as me and my sis, and going to the extent of adopting a kitten whose mom died/abandoned it at birth. I remember coming back from school every day and seeing maa trying to bottled feed the kitten some milk or shifting it into the garage of my grand parents’ house so that it won’t be outside in the open. No wonder, she came up with the idea of helping someone on my birthday, the following year.
So, a year later in September 2016, my parents flew down from Delhi to Hyderabad for my birthday. We spoke to the maid (Sharda) who used to work in our apartment and came up with the plan to distribute stationery and school supplies to kids in the colony that she lived in. The thing about living in a country like India is that it is extremely different from life in America. There are no defined commercial zones and residential zones in most cities and the rich and poor co-exist all over the country. So, you will see high rises and slums jostling for space in the heart of the city however big or small. My parents and I shopped the day before my birthday and it was different from shopping for the latest gadget or getting clothes or a gift. But, it felt so much better. When we finally got everything back home and sat down to make different packets, my bedroom looked like a book store 😀 Magical! One of my biggest fantasies as a child – (only behind the dream of meeting in person the God of Cricket, Sachin Tendulkar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar) – was to get lost in a book store and just live there reading everything I could lay my hands on. I started reading books when I was in the second grade and I inculcated that habit from my maa. We have a huge collection at home and a non (fun) fact from my childhood is that the only time my dad hit me growing up was when I was finishing a Hardy Boys novel by candle light (I grew up in a part of the city which used to have huge power issues) and he had asked me to stop an hour back. So between, the new book smell, the stacks of pencils, erasers and my maa (mom) and baba (dad) helping me make those packages I realized that life is more about sharing and giving than expecting and receiving. I am by no means a good human being. I make mistakes and have human flaws but I want to keep learning how I can try to be more giving and benevolent. I was in bed that night before midnight and was woken up by maa when a few colleagues landed up home with a cake. Next morning, I had three more cakes waiting from my sister, Rahul, and my roommates. At this point of this write up I think I should rename the title to ‘Cake Chronicles’. Anyhow, Rahul drove us to where Sharda lived and she and her kids met us extremely excited to see the packets of school supplies. I remember that day like yesterday. It had been raining off and on that day (September in India especially Hyderabad gets its fair share of rains) and there was a slight drizzle going. The Earth was giving off wafts of that fresh rain smell and among all this we saw a lot of kids coming towards us wearing smiles and casting curious glances at each other.
What I had been unsure about a couple of hours back was whether the kids would want these things instead of food and candy but that feeling was quickly replaced by the jostle that ensued when all of them wanted to get a packet before they were all gone. Sharda quickly organized them in a queue and even told them that it was my birthday. In the next half hour I got 81 handshakes and a lot of hugs from kids who I had never met before. Each of them excited what the contents of the packet was, what the eraser smelt like, whose notebook had what animal’s picture on the cover etc. Before long, all the kids had a packet each and we hung out with them taking pictures, trying to make conversation, playing around etc. The ‘Rain Gods’ eventually decided that the party was over. I had a huge smile on my face the rest of the day. Some of my friends thought I had lost it that I was not going to go out and party and take shots and some were just too surprised to say anything. To me, it honestly does not matter what people think about me. What mattered that day was that I had never experienced so much happiness before and that is then I decided that I will be selfish and not hang out on my birthdays with a huge group and do irrelevant things but use all the time, energy and resources I have to positively impact someone else’s life. According to a friend I had become old and another one referred to me going ‘soft’. If this is what it is, then so be it.
In 2017, I moved to Houston and right before my birthday Texas was ravaged by Hurricane Harvey with Houston and its surrounding cities receiving a brunt of the damage. My friend and I ran a GoFundMe campaign for the city of Houston and we raised $1,300 in a little under 5 days. I decided to use these funds and whatever else I would have spent on my birthday, to give back to the city that I call home now, apart from volunteering with numerous non-profits. The best part was no one at work knew it was my birthday and even though some people at Sphere (the workout group) knew about it, no one got me a cake. Hurrah! No going through the torture of everyone singing out those lyrics, breathing down your neck, waiting for you to blow out the candles, and devouring the cake even though they might never want to be a part of your life the rest of the year.
The southern state of Kerala in India also referred to as ‘God’s Own Country’ (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/kerala-india-they-dont-call-it-gods-own-country-for-nothing/2014/03/06/12e1d956-98f4-11e3-b88d-f36c07223d88_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.db2110e5da5c) for its pristine beauty, backwater canals, paddy fields, tea estates, snake boat races, coconut trees, houseboats, and warm hospitality is reeling under the effects of the worst floods that has affected it in the past 100 years. Approximately, a million people have been affected and are sheltered in 3,000+ relief camps all over the state. Calamities of this scale do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the old and the young, male or female and healthy or sick. Relief work is slow as widespread damage has been caused to infrastructure like roads, railway tracks and bridges being washed away. The official death toll being reported is more than 400 people however a lot of people are still unaccounted for. As my fellow countrymen struggle all I can do is follow the news of the waves of destruction and turmoil being broadcasted by every news channel. So, I am going to celebrate my birthday this year by appealing to all of you to give to this cause because humanity needs you. Of course, there are multiple avenues through which you can contribute however my recommendation would be either to go to the Amazon India website (https://www.amazon.in/b?ie=UTF8&node=8891257031) and buy supplies that not-for-profit organizations have listed and Amazon will deliver them directly to these organizations in Kerala and/or contribute via the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/). Since, we should all practice before we speak hence I have already donated to the Kerala CM’s Distress Relief Fund and have ensured that I have a super awesome birthday this year by trying to do my bit. Hope you will too 🙂
P.S.: I love disappearing on my birthdays most of the times and spoiling surprises planned for me but we will save that story for another day!