Well, another year passes by and I am an year older. What does a birthday signify? According to me its like any other day, the only difference being that a lot of people call you up to wish you to remind you that there are a lot of people that care about you. Birthdays had been specially enjoyable for me in college (IT-BHU) as one could afford to miss classes there at will. During my job, I had forgotten all the fun I had during my birthday at college - the bumps, the crowd ready to congratulate you and the long night outs after the "beating a person up" ceremony was over. The day I arrived in IIMB, I had a look at the way birthdays were celebrated here and liked it a lot. Looking at the fact that I was at the forefront of the hooshing (thats what they call GPL or bumps out here), I had earned quite a bit of fame and when I started featuring on orkut in the upcoming birthdays list, people left no stone unturned in reminding me that I would be killed on 13th night.
In other people's birthdays, people tried to pick me up for hooshing as well but I survived on most occasions. But on 12th night, when the same people tried to have some practice before the main session, I ran and stumbled on the concrete tsepak court scraping my knees and elbows quite badly. My friends were then nice enought to get me bandages but then when I was lying on my bed, they decided to play a practical joke. They took my laptop and stated messaging people that I was seriously injured and then a plethora of people rushed to my room with bandages and what not. I was bit embarrassed that so many people had turned up but was also happy that I had so many friends that cared for me(pata hai thoda senti maar raha hun, Adjust maadi).
Then the D-Day came. Well, just a few hours prior to that, the great IIMB tradition of making a B'Day mail was completed and I have nothing to comment on the B'Day mail. But I have to say, it one of the best b'day mails created ever and all the credit and blame go to my friends Yagnesh, Tauseef, Manish and Nishant (P.S. I will deal with you later :P). Then even though I was injured, I was hooshed a lot (till the time a couple of people had mercy on me and asked the crowd to stop), but I feel that had i been completely fit, the hooshing could have gone on for hours at a stretch.
After that all the people were ready with buckets filled with water to pour on me and they had put all sort of detergents and harpic in the water but due to my injuries most of it was thankfully not poured on me. I then had to lie and roll on the puddle of mud created as a result of all the water. The Cultural Committee here arranges for cakes on all birthdays, not to eat but for it to be smeared all across the face of the birthday boy/gal (and not slices, but the entire cake as shown in Hindi movies in cake fight scenes). So, I had that done too and final task for me was to do the traditional pole dance around the tree there. All this leads to the person requiring to take a bath at that ungodly hour (for which I had to go through hell as pouring water on injuries is not a nice feeling). I came back after the bath and treated some people who still had time in these hectic era and we chatted for a couple of hours.The birthday as such was very uneventful with the entire day taken up by Classes in the morning, repondin to phone calls and chat messages in the afternoon, the Deutsche Post PPT in the evening and the Operations Case in the night. But I did manage to slide in a home-delivery dinner in the packed schedule of mine.
Even though life has changed, I really enjoyed celebrating my birthday in a campus once again, it is an awesome feeling as compared to when you are working. I know I have just one more to go in campus (assuming I am able to clear in 2 years), but you bet i will enjoy every moment that I have here.
P.S. Some confidential details have been withheld due to important reasons. Anyone in possession of such information, be kind enough not to post it.
