Happy birthday to me
You wear the clothes they give you, the snazziest, funkiest, most ridiculous pieces of clothing ever made, with more pockets than buttons, zippers that lead nowhere, and abstract swathes of neon, a cross between a cowboy, an astronaut and a highway signboard.
Balloons everywhere, deflated and tied together, one kid starts to jump on them till they pop, all the other kids join in, the mob has arrived.
As the kids enter the hall, in eyes wide shut fashion, they’re given a mask (not N95), Mickey or Donald (not Trump), held uncomfortably close to the face by a size zero rubber band, meant to snap, like Bata hawai chappals.
Legions of Pepsi and Fanta stand attentively in plastic cups. The more boisterous attendees mix them in varying proportions, sip them once and knock them over while they run circles around the hall.
Frilled paper plates, with one side silvered precariously stacked up. On each one are exactly 9 potato chips, 1 chutney sandwich without the brown borders and 1 samosa.
Accompaniments include two huge bowls of suspicious green and brown liquid with a tiny spoon floating on top, and ketchup, the bigger the bottle, the less ketchupey it tastes.
Each plate is never fully occupied, there’s an empty space on it. It tells you that if you want it filled, you need to sing me a birthday song out of tune, and join one jolly uncle whose annual highlight is calling me a monkey in a zoo.
The cake is rectangular, more frosting cream than cake, with as many candles as birthdays, when it still wasn’t too many to place, and before the fancy numbered ones were invented, or the magic ones that made me cry out of embarrassment.
There are plastic chairs kept in a circle, a stereo cassette player in the center belts some Rahman, less chairs than children, priming you for life, welcome boys and girls, to your first rat race.
The birthday boy or girl always cries, that’s how you know whose birthday it is.
Happy birthday to me, the world is on fire and I’m numb, I could use a slice of cake, more frosting cream than cake, to tide me over, waiting for the music to stop, and I really really hope we all find a plastic chair to sit on…
