Whenever the nephews and nieces visit our house to invite us for any function, invariably the dreaded words would come out so eloquently, "You are the only elders here. Please do grace the occasion." A blunt reminder that our both biological and chronological age is nearing the finish line.

But let us get to happier things. This one was supposed to be about birthdays. And celebrations. In our house, the only birthday that was celebrated in a grand manner other than the astrologically significant chronological ages of sixties and seventies was my elder of the younger sister’s first birthday. I had written about it in one of the earliest posts. It was really grand. At that age, I was six then, I did not even know it was our own family occasion and did not have the nerve to demand and get whatever wonderful eats were available.

Other than that, my siblings or I have never celebrated our birthdays, perhaps till we were married.

After marriage, it becomes obligatory as a peace-keeping effort to wish the spouse, more so in the early years. Slowly the birthday-celebration-culture would intrude into our life. Gifts will follow. Then outings.

In the society I belong to, we celebrate birthdays as per our calendar based on star signs. This I did not even know till my marriage. When the purse was always threatening to get empty, we had time to think of birthdays and how to celebrate them.

My wife was the one who pointed out the importance of celebrating the birthday as per the star system. And the practice of going to Temple on that day. After that, we have earnestly gone to Temple on the date as per the star system. Celebrating with friends, which started after quite some time, would be on the actual date. Except for the first birthday, we rarely celebrated our kids’ birthdays with their friends. Occasionally we might have. But mostly it was after they were grown up.

Before that, it was simple. We would go to the Temple, then maybe a restaurant, and then a photograph in the studio. As the kids grew up, the birthday-photograph-sessions were slowly aborted.

Continued in 269. +1 - Part 3