(un)happy birthday to me!!!

The wake-up call for me on this day was quite quirky. Every day it used to be: "Preeeeeeeeeeeja. Utho." Yeah the 'utho' was also as stretched as possible, but the reasons and accompanying insults used to from getting late for school/college/work to being dead to the world and being most irresponsible.

Oh, and Mom used to turn the clock at least an hour and a half ahead in her announcement to wake me up: which I have to say was a task by itself.

This day, every year, however, it was different. Not in the stretched names and being late: the insults came with a disclaimer, "I don't want to scream at you/beat you/make you cry on your birthday." Ah but my mother was a pro at back-handed insults. "You don't even want to be changed for your birthday" was her very special one in the insult bouquet. It only surfaced once in a year. Ohkay, technically twice because of the Malayalam calendar by which I have another birthday.

And my birthday was a month-long "super excited period" for me. Dropping hints, making loud wishlists, suggesting a hypothetical birthday gift for someone in my class: all of them ways to get a gift; to figure out what is my mother planning to give me this year.

But it would always be Ma. The first person that I saw on the day once I was awake. The first person whose voice I would hear while I was still trying to shake of my slumber. The first person to say have a happy birthday. They all were. Until today. It's not happy as it used to be. It never will be as happy as it used to be.

This year on, the birthday ritual changed. The month-long excitement turned into weary dread. The hints became resigned sighs. Loud wishlists became silent prayers, hypothetical birthday gifts turned into bitter battles with self.

With all this, the ritual changed, I changed, my age changed.
And ma, you made me cry on my birthday.