24 - Where we ramble on and on

:) I had a wunnnerful birthday! You know how it's like most times... it's a month before your b'day and you're thinking, just a month away, then just twenty days away, just a week, just two days, wow, it's MY BIRTHDAAYYY! And then your birthday just smacks you in the face and says, "So, what?" You know when you were younger, it was such a big deal, I remember writing in my diary that on my 8th class birthday, I got 9 birthday cards and 10 gifts (or something to that effect), and it always mattered that more and more people call you, and that the number (and value of course) of your gifts should increase, because, come on, you're older! You have more friends!...

But this time, bleah. For one, I was too busy to keep track of my birthday and there was like, nil, excitement. No, not because I wasn't expecting much, okay yeah, I was (but I'll come to that in a little bit) but mostly because I was so busy with my life that it didn't matter. At work I'm busy being oh-miss-proactive-who-doesn't-know-why-she's-doing-this-job-but-wants-to-do-a-good-job-at-it and at home, well, when am I at home, anyway? And there was a certain huge crisis that I blew up in my face, but well, that got taken care of, beautifully. (alhamdulillah). So I was too busy to notice, plus when I even thought about it, I idly realized that I don't 'maintain' my friends (to use Immu's words). The number of 'best friends' or 'friends in the gang' has been dropping consistently ever since college. There are so many friends that I keep thinking I have to call and it just never happens. I think there are three people right now that I would count among my 'closest friends' and when I come to think of it, I hardly spoke to them on my birthday. One of them clean forgot, until I missed her and called her myself (but she didn't pick up, stupid thing). Another I could hardly speak to cause we were both so busy. The funny thing is I don't hold the 'she didn't call me hawww' against anyone anymore. Of course, I bugged some people for presents (such as my parents who only gave me a Rs. 500 note, ha!) but that was all. I think the whole 'ego' thing about birthdays is long gone. She has grown up, after all!

So on the day of my birthday, we had to attend a professional video shoot. Why, you ask? You see, my team is now a finalist in some Apprentice-type contest being conducted company-wide. So, 4 hours of a precious workday were wasted, no, wait, not wasted. We had fun. We're all supposed to be 'misfits' (and really, with my latest costume upgrade, do I even need to spell it out? But let's not get ahead of oneself) so I projected myself as the nerdy, more friends on orkut and facebook than in real life person and pronounced myself as an internet addict (Why did I look sad about it though? I should have been grinning. Felt sad about leaving out twitter and google reader though). We had a good time shooting that video and today when the contest launched, our video did get some real good applause! (only a couple of my 'colleagues' came to cheer me though, the rest are sore losers, man!).

So yeah, I got back from the video shoot, and decided, no more timewasting, let's get back to work - NOW! So I rolled up my sleeves (metaphorically) and then the phone rang. Oh my god, I was surprised at how many calls I got! Considering I'm me, lost in my own sweet world! It was uppu, a call not to be denied. So I called back and we chatted while I sat at my desk. I noticed people beginning to move behind me and heard a 'Chal, iska bday hai, cake kaatne chalte hain', so I thought 'Okay, the usual cake kaating is going to happen' but continued talking on the phone. And then? And then I noticed that the people who sit in front of me had stood up and were staring at me. I had hung up by then, so I turned around and noticed that the rest of my team members had also moved closer and were staring at me. I was flustered, and said, 'Umm, I feel like I'm an animal at the zoo' and they just continued staring at me! So I stood up at my place and then one of them clicked on something and oooooold hindi music started to play. Everyone started laughing and I was like 'Whaaa?' and then the song began, "tum jiyo hazaaro saal saal... happy birthday to you!" and God, how everyone laughed. Cause you see, this was on the office floor, so it's not only our team but all teams nearby (some 80 odd people) who could hear the loud music, and then they made me stand on my chair! (Reminded me of an earlier birthday at Pizza Hut, sigh, it was nice :) ) Man, it was so embarrassing and so much fun at the same time! I thought the forbidden that day - 'I love my team!' (But yeah, that wasn't supposed to last anyway).

I did get some really nice gifts. Two books, one in the mail that I didn't expect at all. Chips, pepsi :D And one awesome mug whose picture I shall post some day. And my two office 'friends' gave me two different mask like thingies. If some message was intended, I'm not getting it. One of them is a ceramic mask, like you should wear at a masqued ball! And an e-card from Ammy :) (whose crazy stories I must post!) Oh and in the blog world, Shub smsed me, so I called her back and Ishywishy emailed me! :)

Then I went home where there was a dawat (graduation dawat for cousins, coincided with my bday) so there was cake to be cut, food to be had, (not to mention all the cleaning up that had to be done post that). And then we fell asleep, blabbering.

It was a beautiful day, alhamdulillah. Sniff, sniff. Lau you all.

Ghood nayits.