Silver Jubilee (a.k.a. One Red Undie :) )

By far the best birthday I ever had!! Usually I don't cut a cake for my birthday but, I cut 4 yesterday. 4 wonderful flavors of cold cakes made me feel loved :D. "Happy Birthday!" calls from friends, relatives and colleagues kept coming in till the afternoon. Normally I should have gotten at least 5-6 international calls but, I guess people have their own lives to live. Thanks to Ravi and Vasavi for calling from London, I at least have one "ISD wish" to boast about :) I went out to lunch with my family and now my mom is added to the fan list of Ming's Court's Bamboo Rice. :) The evening was very delightful too.

Me and my close friends whom I hang out with most of the time, Sachin, Aruna, Rajiv and Sarita (unlike me, not Gults, though Rajiv understands and speaks Telugu very well) were once in the middle of a game of Uno and I happened to blurt out something in Telugu which they understood as a "cute"ification in English and we ended up having a good laugh over it. I said, "One red andi" (Ek red card hai ji) and everyone almost instantly set out to think why the heck I was talking about Undies (Underwear) and that too red ones in specific. And guess what!? As a symbol of the good times we had, Sachin and Aruna presented me with a Red Underwear :). I intend to frame it and set it up on a wall in my room. :) Sahi gift tha! We ended up laughing for a good half hour over the gift.

Once we reached our party destination, Ten Downing Street (TDS) I left the Red Underwear safely in the car lest I should wear it and burn up the ramps in TDS after getting drunk. :D The recent Bar Tending workshop I attened inspired me to order a warmup round of Cosmopolitans for everyone but, we (Me, Sarita and Aruna) honestly thought what we had made as amateur Bar tenders in the work shop was a class apart from the sad looking over dose of Cran Berry juice with Ice floating in it. I showed off some of the mixology funds I managed to grasp during the workshop to Sachin and Rajiv and they teamed up to get back at me :).

It was just 11.45 by the time the bar at TDS closed and the night was still young so we decided on assembling back at Sachin's place to open up the Johnnie Walker Blue Label bottles which me and Sachin received as compliments to a professional favor we did for an acquaintance from Pramati. After opening the Blue Label the only thing I remember is waking up in Sachin and Aruna's bed beside the AC while the Miya-Biwi themselves had to sacrifice and sleep in the other room. I have experienced quite a few temporary time and memory losses like this because of whisky and the Shivanes (Rajiv and Sarita Shivane) have also been very helpful and supportive witnesses to some of them :D although, the worst of them was handled by Ravi :). I feel really thankful for wonderful friends like these. :)

Having gained my senses and washed my face, I bid the couple adieu and reached home to find my dad in the doorway. I remembered that I didn't call him to inform that I wouldn't be coming home for the night. I knew I had to face the music for this irresponsible act of mine :D and as I was preparing myself for an impending lecture, he brought up a broad, teasing and "since it was your birthday I'll spare you the lecture" smile and said "Washup, have some milk and sleep you must be 'really tired' ". :)

Needless to say it was a wonderful 25th birthday. At the onset of the day I experienced what seemed like tremors of a mid life crisis but, by the end of the day I knew that "life" was just starting for me :).

And oh! I almost forgot, I got some fundooooooooo presents as well. "The Golden Gate" to kick start my Vikram Seth collection. I've always wanted to read Vikram Seth and Ashok K. Banker. Thank you Sarita and Jeev! now that I have this book, I'll buy myself "The Prince of Ayodhya". Another fundoo gift was from Sachin and Aruna - The complete collection of Calvin and Hobbes with exclusive illustrations by Bill Watterson. Unless Bill Watterson decides to come out of his break and authors some more of them marvelous strips, I have everything till now. Thank you beautiful people for all the presents. :)

/PhaKuDi