The First Birthday.

How many of us remember the first birthday we've ever celebrated? Hm? No, I don't remember mine. So this one day I was going through all the photographs of my family and I came across a not very old photo. It had two girls in it, one had a sheepish smile showing off her teeth and the other, the younger one had this expression of 'I don't understand what's going on'. It doesn't really look like those taken on a birthday but then there was a cake too in the photo with a candle on it. Yeah, my first birthday. I have no idea how I celebrated my birthday when I turned 1. And my face in that photo shows it all. I'm sure as hell even you have a picture of your birthday somewhere taken when you didn't know what a birthday actually is. How I wish I remember what happened on that day. It's your day and you don't know what you did. Why? I mean, you have your parents and cousins and aunts telling you that you wore a green frock and had got a Mickey Mouse cake and managed not to cry all day long, that is all fine. But when you know what you've done back then, it's something different, no?

Last week my little kid cousin turned 1 and there was a party organised for friends and family to celebrate the occasion. As soon as I enter the party place, I see this cute baby cradled in her mother's arms, wearing a very pretty gown and the same 'I don't understand what's going on' expression on her face. I stepped beside her mother and wished her on her birthday. All she did was give me a dead stare like she just saw some alien from another planet. Now you'd say, "Come on, she's just a kid. You can't expect her to reply back to you." All right, she wouldn't even recognize me, that is also fine. And then people started pouring in, suddenly there a lot many faces this little one has never seen, distant uncles and grand mothers she has never met before. Now all of them want to see the baby so they simply ask the mother if they can carry the baby for a minute. Poor little baby is now in someone else's hand, scared, she starts crying. No. Please no, no crying on birthdays. But then she got scared when she couldn't find her mom anywhere near her. Too many people started surrounding her trying to calm her down. Didn't work. She wailed and wailed and wailed until her mother came back after talking to the hotel guy who just delivered the birthday cake at the party. Her mother got her changed into the birthday dress which was something like the Disney princess' gowns. Boy, was she beautiful. Then her father took her and made her meet some more new faces. She lied her tiny head on her father's broad shoulders and acted as if she didn't care. Or may be she was too tired. And the moment the cake came in, all the children, some 3 years old and some 4 or 5 flocked around it with their eyes glittering with joy. We all love cake, don't we? There was the 'happy birthday' song playing in the background while the little kid cut the cake with her mom and dad. Yeah, she doesn't even know what a cake is, or why are people getting so excited when she started cutting it. The next thing she realized is that random people are coming up-to her and smearing the icing on her mouth. How does it taste? She knows nothing. Huge packets wrapped in colourful papers were being given to her, some were really big and heavy. She made an attempt to figure out what is all this for and looked at her mother to find an answer, just then the photographer had asked the mother to make the baby look into the camera. With the help of some chocolates and teddy bears she finally looked in the direction of the camera and there came many of her family members to click that perfect picture. Again. Confusion. It was almost late in the night, the little kid still couldn't help feeling anything but weird. Aunties and uncles took turns to pinch her cheeks and made different sounds to make her look at them. In between there was a 5 year old kid pulling her frock down to convince his parents that he too wants to carry the baby. No matter how many times his parents told him that he is too small to carry the baby, he goes on yelling that he is strong enough to carry her. And the baby kept searching for that familiar face of the mother or the father.

To talk about the others at the party, everyone was lost in their own world. Some ladies had conveniently found a corner to sit and discuss about everything under the sun, including how their new daughter-in-law had behaved with them. A few in that group changed the topic by asking one woman where did she buy her saree from. Men flaunted their new smart phones and the older community waited for the steward to serve them water. Teenagers thought that they were in the wrong party and the kids ran all around the place blasting balloons and jumping with their birthday hats on. Mother was busy managing the baby and her hair, both were not listening to her. Father was mentally counting the number of guests and reminding himself that the catering guy who promised to get the best ice cream is late. And yes, where is Mr. Sharma's family? Amid all this chaos, the baby found peace only when her mother put her to sleep. Like an angel, she slept not bothered about her frock or her pose in the photographs or the flavour of the cake or anything and everything that was related to her special day.

It always amuses me to think why don't we remember anything from our childhood. Our birthdays, the pranks we pulled on our siblings, the games we played, the mischief and the innocence. I really wish I remember distinctly what happened on my first birthday. When this baby grows old and checks out her photographs and listens to her aunt telling her that she looked beautiful though she cried for long, she too will wish that she knew what was going on.

Soumya Inavilli