What's in a date?

A lot if you ask me! And I think getting dates right is important. In fact, in my world, it's more noble to forget a date (out of ignorance or a chance accident or any other excuse you may have) than to get it wrong because to me that only indicates that either you don't pay attention to hard-facts or you simply don't care enough to get them right.

Where am I heading with this? Let me ask you a question. Actually to drive my point home, let me make that many questions. Do you wish people Happy New Year on 28th December? Does your bf/gf get his/her Valentine's Day card (if at all) on 12th Feb? Is Women's Day celebrated on 5th March?

Then why...why oh why have people been wishing me Happy Birthday all week? (Did that narcissism catch you off-guard?) I absolutely hate it! (Not the narcissism but the being wished happy birthday before the actual date...)

Ten years ago, it used to be fun to see who remembered and who didn't. Facebook has taken that simple pleasure away from me! Now everyone is sent reminders and this information is flashed on the Home screen from 72 hours in advance. I don't want to sound ungrateful but perhaps only Mid-nighters retain their charm.

It all started on Monday, 27th October. I logged in to my email account to find an email from my Dad saying, "Happy Birthday...(and other senti stuff)". Believe me, nothing can shake your faith in this world more than your parent getting the date wrong. My first reaction was to check the date. My second was to call him and ask if it had always been the 27th and they had only just realised 23 years after the event that they had always got it wrong. (The event being my birth, of course!)

So I called him - that's too burning a question to not raise. And he explained that he sent it 5 days earlier because he wouldn't have internet access till 31st.

"Then why not send it on 31st itself? After all, that is my birthdate...isn't it?" I yelped all confused.
"Yes but between now and midnight on 31st, this was the only slot so I thought I would send it now," he said, sounding extremely content with himself. There is something you should know about my Dad. Every 31st October, he starts calling me from the time it's midnight in Japan to the time the Sun sets in Hawaii. I think somehow he feels the joy of having his first child all over again so much so that he can never get enough of sharing it with me! And this emailing me 5 days in advance was just another incarnation of this sentiment...

So I decided to overlook that and life went on...till this morning. When I woke up and logged into Facebook, I was once again disappointed. A certain person (who must not be named so we will call her (or him) You-Know-Who as a tribute to Lord Voldemort of Harry Potter fame) had wished me a very happy birthday. Now ordinarliy, I would have bitten my lip and gotten over this little incident but this time, I was a bit more annoyed than on the average occassion. You see, You-Know-Who and I aren't really friends or anything. Except on Facebook, where one sometimes accepts friends out of social courtesy than a desire to snoop into their life and share your crazy photographs with them. And that's when it was so apparent - this person obviously knew my birthday was around the corner because Facebook was advertising it! (Uggghhh...)

But even then, why would you pretend you are 2 full earth rotations ahead of me and wish me 48 hours before my birthday??? Do I look like someone who cannot wait till the actual date? Or is You-Know-Who too lazy to log in two days later and do the deed? Or does You-Know-Who think she (or he) will forget it by then despite that impersonal-as-hell Facebook reminder?

I still haven't replied to You-Know-Who and I probably won't till my anger (I know that's a strong word but I can't think of anything else that fits the bill) subsides a little and I sound a little grateful for the "careful thought"!

Here's the deal people: If you are reading this, you're old enough to remember your birthday. And you never forget the date because it's your day! Even 23 years on, I think of it as my special day. But little surprise remains when the likes of Facebook and BirthdayAlarm advertise it as if some stupid boy-band were going to perform in town in a couple of days. I used to say, "Thank you for remembering my birthday" but that seems to have become too much of a presumption these days. So the only little surprise that remains is to NOT hear about it till the actual day - just in case someone somewhere wakes up, looks at the date in his watch and says, "Oh! It's Aanchal's birthday today. Let me give her a call..."