28 going on 29

A Memorable Birthday

I am not much of a birthday celebrator, parents do the praying stuff for me, they go the temple and do other similar stuff. So one can pretty much guess what i do..., i just continue doing what i do the rest of the other 364 days of the year. But this year, it turned out to be a special one, the second in succession.

Ragavan was the first to wish me, full 2 days prior(fast isn't he..., very unlikely him). Then it was kalyani's turn on the eve of the D-Day, she wished me the very best. Kandavel called me up 15 minutes before the official day and gave me a present. Ramya was the first officially, minutes after the clock moved to the next day (sic I’m 28[completed] already). She read me a poem by (damm...i forgot the author). It was a new experience for me. It was nice, a first for me.

Jagannath (uncle) was the first relative to call me in the morning. Dad had picked it up. Ram was next. For the former i did not get up but for the later i had to or my bro will be really cross. I had told dad not to wake me up very early in the morning, man it will be just 7am when they start calling me, man they got to get a life and get to sleep late.......like i do, i usually get around 9am ;-)).

I got back into bed, just when i was drifting back to sleep, i was woken by Ragupathi and Ramya. They wished me happy birthday, made me cut a cake and splattered my face with cake and cream. A repeat of almost the same sequence like last year, except, for one of the participants. Any chances of me getting ba5ck to sleep were now next to nothing. Soon more relatives and colleagues called me up, wished me good luck and many happy returns.

When i reached office, everybody offered their pleasant greetings. Took the whole floor (almost); for lunch to a place called Amaravathi. I had initially planned to take only around 15-20 of the closest in the floor. But since i moved with virutally the whole staff, i was left with no choice but to take them all. It was a very nice experience. Except for preethi (the unlucky one), all the other girls/ladies came along ( i never expected them..so it made the occasion all the more special), so did Ravi, one of the engineers in the floor. I don't think this group will ever again go out the way we did. One or two like chandrasekar and suresh missed out on this, as they could not come to office for various personal reasons.

In the evening as was customary for the birthday boy, i cut the cake. The unusual event was that my face got covered with cake, again in the same day. Hari and Chandrasingh were the mischievous duo. This was a first for me, for anyone in our office i guess. I had a hard time, removing the cake and oily stuff from my face, felt like it would never go away. God! How do girls wear makeup day in and day out, my heart reached out for them for the few horrible minutes at least.

I was presented with a Pant (from the whole floor), a T-Shirt (from some of the newer guys) and a Shirt from Kumar as birthday gifts. I thanked them all for the gifts and expressed my pleasure. I selected the pant, when hari took me for shopping earlier.

I've shared some of the memoral moments captured by the electronic eye in my MSN Spaces
(http://spaces.msn.com/members/narsim/PersonalSpace.aspx)