The No Name Drama

There is a pattern of rituals on everybody’s birthdays. Like every year, I have one friend who starts a countdown one week before my birthday and goes like, “Hey there are two days 4 hours, 50 minutes and 7 seconds to go for your birthday.” and then here I am like, “My birthday is on 19th and today is 18th, so, do I say there is 1 day to go or zero days to go? Fine never mind, I’ll stick with tomorrow is my birthday.” And then there is another friend who writes a letter or makes a scrap book full of disgusting pictures of me snorting or hysterically laughing or blocking the camera from my sorry ass face and gets me a pair of ear rings for every birthday. And then there are people in my family who make a video, every single year, that has my baby pictures.. Well, it is a family tradition, whoever celebrates their birthday gets this video with baby pictures gift. So, once you’ve celebrated enough birthdays, you notice an obvious pattern. That’s the story of every birthday. Here’s mine.

I knew this was trouble the minute my mom said ‘a relative’s wedding’. I smelled it. The trouble and of course nice food. So I was just loitering around and hoping some random auntie doesn’t catch me and ask, “Whose side are you on?” because I seriously have no idea. So anyways, I did get caught in the end, by this auntie wearing a ridiculously glittery diamond on her necklace (trust me when I saw I went blind for a couple of seconds) and asked me, “Haaai! Remember me?” Right. This is worse than whose side are you on. “Ahem… yeah! Of course!” “Good god, look at you! I saw you when you were two, now you grew up so much!”,she said smiling so good naturedly that I almost (almost) ignored the absurdity of her statement and thought of a suitable reply for her cliched line and not something like, ‘Of course! I grew up, what did you expect, that I still eat Cerelac?’ So instead I said, “Uh… Haha.” Awkward silence.  “Right. I need to go find my mom.”,I say at last, which is not totally untrue.

In life, you always make choices. Since the time you were born, you learn to choose after you learn to breathe and cry for milk. Like in fifth grade, I had to choose between being cool and dumb (I chose cool, but ended up being dumb, but that’s a different story). And like the time in eighth grade, I had to make a choice between Messi and Ronaldo, because it was FIFA (I chose the hotter one, figure it out). And like the time in high school I had to choose between Math and Bio (I chose Math, better than cutting open dead bodies, I thought), so generally math homework is what makes me miserable and makes me question all the choices I’ve made uptil now. So, I made an excellent choice and closed my math books and made a tough choice between Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Just as the movie started and the protagonists were being introduced, I hear a voice, “What a creative way to study.” Wait, this dialogue doesn’t sound like it could belong to the movie. And sure enough, it isn’t. My dad is st

The best thing about summers is, (No. It is not holidays, mangoes, movies, ice creams or IPL) sitting on the couch and listening to your mother’s ranting about how lazy you are and how chubby your cheeks have become. Get the feeling? I’m glad! So, I was lazily browsing through the TV, when my mom snatched the cup of ice cream I was holding in my hand and replaced it with a glass of lemonade.  “Lemonade is a great source of vitamin C and one cup of the juice gives you 187 percent of the day’s total vitamin C requirement and kills harmful toxins.” Woah! What's with all these stats and facts? Thanks to all those forwarded messages on Whatsapp. “You forgot sugar.”,I ventured after tasting it. “Sugar has high calories and makes you gain a lot of unhealthy weight, honey is a good replacement.” Okay. What is this sudden health conscious? Like I am contesting for Miss India or something. “You know what?”,my mother started off. “There is a famous saying about lemons and lemonade. When life