This day and age

It all started with a midnight phone call from Dubai.

"Bhai... budday bolke is hafte ka hafta dabbal karne ka kya?"

Oh wait, that was the wrong call. Pretend you didn't read that. Reboot reboot.

So... as I was saying, it all started with a midnight phone call from Dubai. Two of my beshtesht friends Reghu and Aathira had called to wish me as I reluctantly hung on to the last few minutes of what I prefer to call "my previous age". So I complained to them about Viv who has gone off to Vegas leaving me alone on my birthday. (Okay fine, before you guys start imagining Viv as the sharaabi juaari pati from a 70s' Hindi flick blowing away our lifetime savings, let me sing "Bhala hai bura hai jaisa bhi hai, mera pati mera devta hai" and then clarify that he has gone there on work.)

So yeah, it was my birthday. And it didn't seem to have started on a good note at all. I had to wake up at 6.30 am for an early morning video conference with a manager in our Melbourne office. Something had gone horribly wrong with a publication from last year and he wanted to discuss it urgently. So I dragged myself to work early in the morning and stationed myself in the video conference room along with two of my colleagues who were also attending the meeting. Before I had time to wake up properly, I saw them closing in on the glass walls of the meeting room. The office gang, ambushing me in the meeting room with a whole cheesecake!

"What... But the... video conference... Melbourne... you guys... so early..." was all I could say before I realised the royal prank they had played on me. It seems the manager in the Melbourne office was also in on the prank when he had requested for that "urgent meeting". He had sent me a very elaborate email about the "problem" he wanted to discuss, and had even booked a video conference room in Melbourne! Ah, what drama. He sent me an email later to apologise for not being able to make it to our "meeting" because -- get this -- "I was in a REAL meeting." LOL!

I was so touched that all of them had woken up early to spring this surprise on me. We had a cheesecake breakfast in the pantry, where I proceeded to dissect the events of the previous day, and how well they had managed to hide it from the surprise queen herself. (Yeah, I used to be the birthday surprise queen in the office too before I retired last year.) I was going "AHA! That's why...!" every now and then. One of the "meeting attendees" had actually changed his Outlook communicator status message to say, "Argh, not another early morning meeting!" Nautanki! (You guessed it, I'm packing him off to Karan Johar's office right away.)

Later that afternoon, my ex-team (we had a restructuring recently) came by with my favourite flowers -- pink gerberas. This was followed by another slice of cheesecake delivered to my desk by four of the craziest editors in my office. It was so awesome!

In the evening, I went to Holland Village for dinner with the usual suspects -- the very awesome people without whom my birthday wouldn't be complete. Plus Mexican food and margaritas. And more cake and more gifts. Yippeee! The restaurant played "Happy birthday" in Spanish when the cake came out, which led me to believe that no matter what the language, this touching tune means only one thing - "You are OLD."

The margaritas took effect pretty quickly, because Pizzadude and I had already started giggling, and Shub suddenly sang out, "THUMS-UP!" making me bellow, "TASTE THE BLUNDER!" Sumanth was the only dignified one at the table. Even Clueless, who otherwise holds her drink well, seemed a bit talli, but I won't elaborate further because she is a teacher, committed to mould the future of her students (actually their future already looks pretty mouldy to me), and it would be highly inappropriate of me to share her margarita stories until I have firmly ascertained that at least 70% of her students read this blog.

Thanks to the birthday notification feature on Facebook, I had more than a 100 birthday wishes waiting for me when I got home. And strangely, I did not have the cynical "As if you guys remembered on your own!" feeling which I would have had a few years ago. I just felt really happy that even with the Facebook prod, people would take the time to type a birthday message for someone. Sign of maturity, eh?

Another sign of maturity -- a school friend from my Bhai days sent me a message, "Bhai, ab bandook ki goli ke din gaye, calcium ki goli ke din aa gaye." I think I laughed for a full five minutes when I read that.

I was also particularly thrilled when the in-laws called to tell me that they had sponsored dinner for all the kids in an orphanage for my birthday. What a super idea and what a beautiful gift.

I think there is only one drug to treat the 'I feel old' problem people face on their birthdays. It's the 'I feel happy' wonder drug, and I sure had a rather large dose of that.

And now, since we have reached the end of the post, I have to make the customary "I am wiser by a year" statement/advice for all bewdas (including myself), and here it is:

The older we get, the more awesome it is if we're fit. So let's get off our fat asses and do something about them instead. :D