Happy Birthday Yugesh

Dear Yugesh,

Tomorrow shall be just another day for the world. The milkman shall ring the bell once precisely at 5 am. Then there would be a lull for some time until pandemonium breaks. There will a collective assault on all the senses at precisely 6am. Another day would begin.

But for us, it would be a day to gilt edge and frame it and store it in the deepest vaults of our memories along with your other birthdays and cherish them once in a while.

I try to remember the day the stork brought you home. OK. You are too old for that. And let us also not fool ourselves that you were as pretty as a picture. You were as ugly as any new born.

You were a benign Buddha. Always smiling. The only one afraid of you was our dear Alsatian, Bonny. You would shriek with delight as you saw him and try to use him as a prop to stand up pulling his skin and sometimes tripping over him. He would let out a howl of anguish as soon as he saw you crawling.

As you grew, you loved to sit on my lap and sit next to your dad while driving. I don’t remember when you suddenly grew up and I started calling you an overgrown Alsatian no longer fitting in my lap. Last year in KC chacha’s house , I felt my eyes go moist when you wore my Ralph Lauren shirt and it fitted you beautifully. KC chacha spoiled the moment by removing the plate of onions I was chopping from me. Some people are so blatant!

Do you remember that day you had your unit test and you overslept. You were afraid of going to school as the principal would punish you in front of the school. How we borrowed your dad’s car and I kept bragging that your principal doesn’t have the guts to do that to you as long as I was with you. You really believed it. How we sneaked you from the back gate to the classroom as the class came back from the prayers and how you felt so proud of me. I can let out a little secret today. I had bribed the security at the gate. You see ,even gods have feet of clay. It’s expensive to maintain the super hero status. I am glad now you are grown and accept me for what I really am.

We shared everything. Even your anguish and pains. I am proud that you always think of me when you have self doubts.Remember that night when you chatted with me at 2 am hiding the laptop inside your bed and covering yourself with quilt and using a torch. If your dad reads this, he would be horrified. So would your mom. They never knew. Wonder if you could have pulled that trick against bua?

You were always a sensitive and an understanding kid. Remember that time when I eagerly came from USA to celebrate your birthday with you and paiya? And how you ,instead, decided to go for a movie with your friends. It is this sharing and caring that keeps us together!

This birthday, I want to let out a little secret. Of all the nephews, you are my favorite. Now its not my problem that you are the only nephew I have. But let’s assume, hypothetically , that I did have, trust me you still would have been my favorite. ( It’s your birthday after all and I have to be good to you.)

But I have one more dilemma. All your friends are my friends too. Now what should I do? Support them when they give you the customary birthday bumps or save you since you are my only nephew. I am glad I am not in Dehradun. You are on your own son. I told you. This caring and sharing has kept us together so long and I see no reason to change this winning formula.

One last thing. We live in very hard and trying times. The least we can do is smile and be happy and try to make others laugh.Thanks for bringing so much happiness and laughter in our life. I am glad you have inherited my sense of humor. But trust me. You are funnier when you borrow some one else’s jokes.

Happy Birthday!