The Countdown to wishing me a Happy Birthday!

Do you remember the euphoria of celebrating your birthdays as a child? I still feel it as an adult.

I've always been a 'birthday paithyam'. From when I can remember, I've been crazy about my own. I would always start a countdown a month before my birthday getting all excited on how I would celebrate it. When I was young and such a brat, there used to be a rule at home. On my birthday no one was allowed to yell at me - no matter what I did do. License to do as I please!

As I sadly, despairingly,bemoaningly near the last of my 20s birthday, I want to cheer myself up by listing out my favourite birthday gifts.


1. My Barbie Doll - What do I say?I cried, I begged, I demanded. He refused, he sighed and then he capitulated. My dad's 5th Birthday gift to me. Her demise? A hilarious story by itself, that I shall recount some day.

2. Phantom Sweet Cigarettes - On numerous birthdays - my brother's gift to me. Should this have been an hint to the reckless adult I have become?

3. A pretty pink  princess frock - I always longed to own a pretty pink frilly frock and be a princess.Preferably,Cinderella. Surprising, considering the tomboy that I always was. On my 8th Birthday, my maternal grandparents gifted me one which I wore to school with deep satisfaction. That day evening, a couple of boys in my class offered to bury me neck deep in sand as a birthday gift. I was ecstatic and leapt into the hole feet first. Well, what do I say? When I did get out, my no more pretty, brown and black, torn frock had to be buried away-albeit permanently. Sigh, princess ambitions? Me? Really?

4. Pride and Prejudice - A deep sigh of pleasure here. For my 15th Birthday, sick of seeing me eternally borrowing the Pride and Prejudice from our school library, Megs & Bhav gifted me my own copy. My library teacher relieved to know that other students of our school could have the opportunity to read Jane Austen had the book plastic wrapped for me as her gift. Wow.I think this figures as one of the top 3 best ever gifts I have received.

5. Poornima Aunty & Sweet Sixteen- On my 16th Birthday,the skies wept and I didn't carry an umbrella to school. My drenched birthday frock caught against a nail and tore,and my best friends' forgot that it was my birthday. I, in the typical Deepti style, sulked and ignored them all day, despite repeat apologies. Come evening, Ashu's mother calls me up and says, "Deepti, I'm sorry that my daughter forgot your birthday.Let me celebrate yours". She treats the 4 of us to Avengers and dinner with a cake. Eternally grateful to you, Aunty.

6. My classy Titan watch - Since the last 10 years, I have been using the same watch. A gift from Perima, Peripa and my sister for my 18th Birthday.

7. A library card - The bestest gift I have ever received in my life!When I was 12 or 13, my dad cancelled our membership to the local lending library after i lost three books. For my 18th Birthday, my dad gifted me my very own card to our local lending library. It was white,glossy and had my name printed on it. Wow, I really do have a dad who knows his daughter amazingly well.

8. The 5th Avenue Burger - I was in Hyderabad for my exam study leaves on my 20th Birthday. While my aunt pestered me asking,"Shall I make chola batura or vethai kozhambu or  pulav for your birthday", her mother in law, my athai patti, a madisaru wearing 80 odd year old grandma, shoves a 50 Rupee note in my hand and smiles and tell me, "Kanna, onnaku antha burger naa romba pudikkumae, vangiko, en birthday gift onnaku". Awwwww.

9. My book cupboard - Sick and tired of seeing my books strewn around the house and bursting at the seams of my clothes cupoard, my dad had a book cupboard built for me to keep all my books for my 28th Birthday.What do I say but awesome?

Well the countdown to the last of the 20s begins now. Here's to hoping that I survive the two day long meetings with the bosses in Mumbai and my flight reaches Bangalore in time to celebrate my birthday with dear friends.

P.S. I think, just to make me happy, I'm going to celebrate my next five birthdays as my 29th Birthday.

THE OTHER KID BORN OF THE SAME BLOOD

I think the most horrific memory I have of my brother is the time I accidently dropped his inkpot.It crashed to the ground from his study table, the ink spreading across the floor. You could have mistaken it for blood if it were not for the colour.I remember feeling shit scared of what he would say.My fear was quite justified.After helping me clean the floor,he made me face the wall and rub my nose against it.Even a hundred apologies did not mollify him.At the end of half an hour when he finally relented and let me off from the wall I had already lost probably 10 layers of my skin.It was his turn to be horrified.Obviously. Dad got to know of the incident and I think blasted my brother.He didn't think the punishment merited the crime. Neither did I.Yet, I still had to go an entire term to school with a tanned brown face and a pinkish white nose. I'm surprised that I don't have the nickname 'Rudolph'.

My brother used to always delight in getting in me into trouble with my aunts and my grandmother. The same as I used to love getting him into trouble with Dad. It helped that Dad was mostly partial towards his younger daughter.There was this one time when my brother and me were eating Dosas at the table and he started sprinking his with Catch salt. Quick to imitate my brother in everything he did, I mimicked his action. No sooner did I begin, he shouted out, " Patti, look at what Deepti is doing!!!". My grandmother quick to support her sensible grandson and berate her scatterbrained grand daughter whacked me across my head and when I said, "But, it was Siddhu who told me to" admonished me for lying about my brother.It was always said by everyone, " I wish Deepti were more like Siddhu. He is sooo 'Samathu'( well behaving ) whereas Deepti is too naughty and always getting into trouble".They never bothered to try find out that quite a few of the scrapes I got into, I was ably led into them by him and while I was left holding the sword he would have long since sprinted away.

I paint a rather devilish,wicked and bullyish picture of my brother don't I? That he was. But I think he was also a lot more than that.

I remember all those times he was around to pull me out of all those terrible scrapes I would get into ( irrespective of whether he got me into them or not!!).The time when I was six and I lit a 50 walah holding it in my hand. He quickly lept, grabbed it out of my hand and threw it away just in the nick of time.He slapped me, but never complained to Dad about it.Or those times when I was eight and he was thirteen and we would travel alone from our grandparent's house to ours by bus ( some 20 kms).When the bus would be crowded, he would find me a seat to sit in and keep an eye on me throughout the journey.

But, more than any other incidents there are three that I will probably never forget.

When we were small,during my birthdays, after the party he would invariably take me to a shop and buy me 'Phantom Ciggaretes' as a birthday gift 'cause they were my favourite sweets.I adored him so much!!

The second was when I was three and he was eight.We were playing Holi in our apartment complex when I suddenly felt a shooting pain in my stomach. I pointed at another kid and tugging at my brother's kurta told him,"Anna, my stomach is paining.That boy he shot me". The boy in question was probably twenty feet away,just staring at us and by no stretch of anyone's imagination could have wielded a gun that could have sprayed me from that far away! Yet , my brother just to comfort me and stop me from being unhappy pointed his pichkari in that guy's direction and sprayed it a couple of times in the air and said, "There, now I have shot him too". Reminds me of that Surf Excel brother and sister ad.

The last one is the time when I probably had lost my calculator for the umpteenth time when I was in college.I was terrified of what my Dad would say.I was certain I was going to get screwed. I decided to ask my bro for a loan to buy a new one. He gave me this disgusted look and asked me, " why don't you just ask dad? He will blast you but will definitely get you a new one". When I told him that it was the second calculator I had lost in a year, he gave me this dry look and said "No. Why don't you just learn to face your stupidity?".A couple of hours later and a million under the breath raves and rants against my brother for being so insensitive, I found a brand new calculator lying on my desk and a short lecture on being more careful. I was amazed, yet touched.Never found the right words to thank him.

My brother is one of the most contradictory persons I have ever met. The birthdays I would ask him for a gift, he would tell me to get lost. Yet on the birthdays in which I didn't remind him off, I would find a gift lying on my study table and an indifferent, "Ah, Happy Birthday".

My brother has never been one for words. He would probably give me a disgusted look if I were ever to ask him if he cared about me. We don't really have anything to talk to each other about. I think its years since we had a decent conversation with each other.When we do talk our conversation is quite stilted and formal. Any stranger would be quite justified in thinking that we were just acquaintances if they were to overhear the kind of conversations we have.Yet none of it has ever really mattered to me. Because no conversation, no honeyed words of love, no hugs and kisses can replace what I do know that I have from my brother. Despite our indifference towards each other, I do know that I have someone I can always depend on when I'm stuck in a quagmire of shit.

P.S

Hey Bro! I know you never read my blogs. I probably will as usual get you a shirt or a music CD for your birthday the way I always have.But this is a special dedication to you for our 22.5 years of being bro and sis!! Happy Birthday, April 19th!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME !!

I'ts my Birthday today. I turn twenty two. But somehow the thought does not leave me one bit excited. Somehow I can't fathom anything special. To be honest I find the day quite depressing.
When i was a kid I had an obsession for birthdays. November 6th was always the most exciting day of my life. I used to adore the attention, the fun and most importantly the gifts. When the day passed and it turned November 7th , I would immediately start a countdown to my next birthday. My dad and brother always said that 'Deepti has 365 friends for 365 birthdyas'.I think as a kid I probably lived for birthdays. Especially mine.

I would have those traditional birthday parties with a cake, streamers and balloons decking the house, a new dress and lots of friends and relatives bearing gifts for me, :) I remember this one instance where I refused to allow a cousin of mine to my party because he had not brought any present for me. I was like 'Giri! Don't you know that you are supposed to bring the birthday girl a gift? I can't allow you to my party'. Quite the precocious one, wasn't I?
My brother would in the night take me for a walk and buy me a pack of phantom sweet cigarettes ( I adored that stuff!!) as a birthday gift. And I would be so thrilled!It would be the final icing to a wonderful day.
Once you grow older the way you celebrate them turns different. Now its more of going out for lunch and dinner with friends and family. Its still enjoyable but so much more sober. Lacks the adrenalin surge and the excitement that traditional birthday parties with gallons of presents would offer. That wonderful feeling of being the most important person in the world that day.

Anyway, Happy Birthday to me.