Turning Twenty Seven

When I returned to work this week, after a blissful trip to my l'il sister's at Hyderabad, I heard many a ‘what-i-did-over-the-long-weekend’ conversations in the elevator.

So, what did I do?

I turned 27.

As a child, my birthday was always the best day of the year. That was the day when mom would make my favourite Mysore Pak. Doting aunts and uncles would arrive to wish their neice. It’s another matter that the 50 bucks they would gift interested the neice way more than the wish! And for once, dad was not allowed to yell at me for anything goofy I did that day.
The only thing that peeved me was the date, that fell during the summer break in school. I could never be the gleaming kid in her brand new dress, distributing Nutrine pineapple flavored toffees to her class, while they sang the birthday song in unison. Funny how I was relieved about the exact same thing ,no-school-on-birthday when I got to high school though!

But then, the picture is not quite the same, when you are older, is it?

“27?? Oh you don’t look that old” said my visibly surprised co-worker, after she’d wished me.

And I thought about the “that” in her sentence. Should I be smiling about the fact that there are people who think I look younger than I am, or should I read into the way she stretched it making it sound more like a “thaaaat” which makes 27 borderline old-age?!

And then there’s my really really concerned aunt.

“27?? And you still don’t have a baby? Don’t you realize time is ticking away? Atleast, give me the good news by your next birthday!”

She's set me on a race against time now. Timed by not just one, but two clocks- biological and regular.Sheesh.

If that wasn’t enough, I recently saw this mentioned in a skin care article in my favourite mag, Cosmopolitan. They’d sectioned the advice by age group and of course, I had to look in the (26-30) age group.

“We hate to break the news to you. But your skin is no longer going to be as naturally radiant as it used to be when you were younger.”

Et tu Cosmo? Life can suddenly get so cruel once you fall outside the (21-25) bracket . Sigh.

But what the heck? Birthdays are for celebrating right?

It was the first birthday I spent with dad, l'il sister,brother-in-law and G, together.
Li'l sister and BIL played perfect hosts when they took us out for a midnight buffet(!), a first for me. I did have my suspicions about whether this was the restaurant's ploy to get rid of leftover food, but I was soon proved wrong when we were asked to wait for 20 minutes for a table when we arrived at the place at about 12:15 am and the food turned out absolutely delicious!

While at the buffet, we did click a few snaps. But here's the one that takes the cake, well, literally!

Courtesy the worst photographer in the world - my sister. So much for the enthu G was posing with, for this snap! :)

And in the morning, I woke up to a barrage of phone calls from friends and family. And my Orkut scrapbook, abound with messages from friends near and far. L'il sister and Dad made sure there was abundant supply of Mysore Pak at home. How sweet is that?

And yeah, G's promised an air conditioner(!) for a gift. Considering that he's gonna be sharing the room with me, I am trying hard to ignore any hidden agenda here. And to believe that this is going to be my gift and not ours! :)

Oprah couldn't have said it better when she said this.

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate. "