Happy Conception,every one!

I am supposed to have been born on the 24th of April in the year 1988,atleast that is what I have been told ,told by Ma,by the birth certificate and by a great many lifeless sheets of paper which seem to attach mysteriously more importance to that day than even I do.Every year,even the shallowest of the acquaintance will bump into me from nowhere to wish me many happy returns of this day and for that moment,a part of me has learnt to delight itself .(Trust me,this will not turn out be as depressing as it has set out to be)

Unfortunately,the amnesia of infancy will never allow me to recollect how it felt to have earthly air whoosh past my naked body for the first time.But,I was not particularly happy to come out of my mother's womb.Ma talks of me being still in sleep when they cut the umbilical cord,still ensconced in eternal ignorance.The suspecting doctor suspended me upside down and had to only slightly pat my buttocks to extract a loud whine-the first assertion of existence.

So,that was the unassuming story of my birth .Perhaps I derive all my quixotic indifference from there.Perhaps I am still really sleeping ,only now will this attitude be cursed as dangerous oblivion.

At home,this day means the cuisine is every bit tailored to my choice,so much so that I barely manage to taste everything,much to the sweet disappointment of Ma.Besides that,birthdays are a quiet affair,a day when you take an added amount of care not to mess up with others so that ,however silently melancholy,it might turn out to be,it does not go down as an outstanding disaster in memory.

That then should explain my inability to remember my friends' birthdays and also my failure to associate due significance to them.Other than finding it somewhat amusing-this celebration for passing by the signboards that the Gregorian calendar carefully keeps erecting on the road called time,a road that only brings us closer to the destination that is death,I have now invented for myself a novel justification that I am using pretty expertly when someone close makes me uncomfortably aware of the guilt of forgetting his(her) birthday-

"The moment of your creation,of existing from non-existence,of becoming something from nothing is not your birth,it is your conception.It is that poignant juncture in time when two happily vagabond sperm and ovum chose to unite,not to execute any special design but for the sheer heck of it.And I think it is a scene so hallowed and serene,that it stubbornly remains one which cannot be recorded by a world that seemingly cannot wait to pounce on you,one that no random outsider can exploit to construct hypocritic bonhomie."

Inspite of all this rhetoric,it is no matter of extraordinary wonder that the above lines should be written by a kid who on his birthday ,kept grinning to himself all morning fuelled by phonecalls from his two schoolmates and then spent the entire evening quietly crying over not receiving even an email from someone he irrationally adores.

Only,I can tell how much joy I bring to Ma when on the 23rd of January ,I wish her early morning .Thankfully,she does not know how Baba ,being very knowledgeable of his son's absent-mindedness has called up a minute ago to remind me of her birthday.

So,the conclusion is ,even if my earnest efforts to remember your birthday don't produce any tangible results,I am making up by wishing you,my dear friends(all the school sweethearts ;),the childhood partners in crime,and now,my iitk buddies) a very Happy Conception for each one of you is so wonderful in your own special ways,that I am happy you existed in the first place.That you took birth ,and were actually destined to touch my life and make it cherishable is an added incentive, a separate source of pleasure.

Be well,all.