Birthday

 Birthday

The hullabaloo around birthdays is commonplace across cultures, with variations in degree, be it small or large. Birthdays have been understood to serve as rites of passage at different stages in one’s life. ‘Sweet sixteen,’ ‘turning 30,’ ‘Naughty at 40', these epithets just go on to mark milestones and there is a ritualistic reinforcement of the affair in some manner or the other

However, those of us who have lived in cities have witnessed a wide array of options for ‘celebrating’ birthdays. Socializing in cities today dictates that a birthday without clamour, noise and festivity almost doesn’t seem like a birthday. Of course, there is very much a class angle attached to this and today’s era of commercialisation has contributed immensely to how rites, rituals and festivities are observed in present times...

I have however, always had a problem with the hyped idea of birthdays. After all, what’s so big and great about a birthday?

what then does ‘celebration’ connote? What exactly do we celebrate? Isn’t it just another performance of our gender roles, of being coerced into ritualising it?Receiving gender specific or another crockery our cutlery set

Birthdays need not always be ‘fun.’ It is okay not be okay. It is okay to not fit in the box. It is okay to ‘celebrate’ (if celebration is in the true sense of the term).

I wonder why should the whole world know about my celebrations or my birthday, it isnt a big deal.  

I do the same things on my birthday that i did a day before and after, except for my age nothing suddenly changes. 

While I sip my masala chai, manage the  chores, keep an eye on my daughters 

 I wish myself  more reading, more comfort food and more ‘simple nothings’ and more 'OUR' time with family in the year ahead.

 It isn’t too late! And the rest can sulk in condemnation