Birthday Wishes

I celebrated my birthday yesterday. Another year got added to my age & the confusion of whether I got older or younger stays. But for all reasons of being positive & optimistic I would like to believe like a lot of other older people have been believing that age is just a number, how old or young you feel is all in the mind.

This year I got Advance Birthday wishes, Birthday wishes & Belated Birthday wishes. I have always noticed that how every year there is someone new who wishes you. I don’t know if this happens with everybody. And no, it is not someone new you got to know after the last birthday who naturally will be wishing you for the first time. But people who you have known for a while for many years suddenly realize it’s your birthday & send you their wishes. Of course in today’s world sending birthday wishes is as simple as sending an SMS.

This year one person first wished me through SMS, then made a call & wished me & finally dropped by in person & wished me. At office all my colleagues wished me except one, I wonder why this person didn’t wish me. I got calls from a few of my friends but not all of them. I got a message from a person named Sunitha, I am still wondering whether that was my cousin or my ex colleague. Another ex colleague called me a day before the birthday & wished me saying he wouldn’t be reachable on my birthday so may not be able to call. I got wishes from matrimony sites. One also gave me gifts for my birthday; they offered me 30 days free membership after I paid up for a paid membership of 90 days. Today I made calls to the credit card call centers to ask for some previous statements. ICICI Bank wished me belated wishes immediately after I punched in the credit card number & went on to say my outstanding was Rs 17000. The Citibank lady I was talking to said belated birthday wishes just before she ended the call.

Its nice to get these birthday wishes, especially when its from some unexpected quarters. Like you get it for your birthday I guess it’s natural to give it to others on theirs. Now that is where I don’t. And I don’t know whether I should be embarrassed about it or cool. For now I am checking out some birthday reminder websites.

I remember this one time I called a friend up & happily said Happy Birthday only to be told that day was not her birthday & it was coming up next month. God, I still remember that incident. Luckily for me she didn’t make too much fun of it. For her 2007 birthday it was back to normal. I had forgotten it. We were in office and we sit close by & can see each other. She came in & was settling down when she got a call and she was all smiling & thanking & all that & that is when it struck me that there was something that day, but I still couldn’t decide whether it was her birthday or wedding anniversary.

Another birthday another person. This was a new person & if I wished her on her birthday it would have been the first time. So I had made enquiries about the date & tried to remember especially because it was coming up. One day I got a message from her in the afternoon, the SMS read, “I didn’t know you were like this”. I was naturally concerned thinking I had done something wrong or she had got offended with something. A lot of these SMSs followed the entire day. I realized only the next day that it was her birthday that day & she was expecting to be wished.

Leave all this I guess the icing on the cake has to be this incident. Last year one of my friends called me up on my birthday & wished me. I was of course saying all my thanks & everything. Four days later was his birthday. By now you must know what happened.
This year too he was the first among my friends to call me. So now his birthday is coming up on the 14th. Wait a minute is it the 14th or….