Ah! This day! Lovely people around me and so many beautiful memories!
Ever since I left home, which was back in 2008 for my Junior year of high school (a.k.a. Junior college in India), the excitement around my birthday celebrations diminished over time. I don’t exactly know what triggered it, but, it has been more than a decade now that I don’t enjoy celebrating my birthday.
Having said that, lovely friends and people around me always had other ideas in mind, especially during this birthday celebration when I was in Hartford.
So, my UConn buddies – Shlok, Nidhi, Doctor Sahab, and Kokila, made sure to surprise me with a home made cake and some lovely and thoughtful gifts for this celebration. My “official” birthday is on April 23rd, but as I was about to leave to NYC on 22nd, they decided to celebrate my birthday on the 21st. I wasn’t expecting that, so it was definitely a surprise for me.
The proceedings started off with Kokila gifting me a small plant to commemorate our friendship and asked me to take care of that plant. I knew she would gift me something thoughtful, but, I *was* not the kind of person who could take care of the plant, as I was mostly spending my days and sometimes nights outdoors. So, I, politely requested Doctor Sahab to take care of it. All jokes aside though, I really loved the gift and wish I could have preserved that plant.
Next came Doctor Sahab. In his own style, Doctor Sahab surprised me with a greeting card and a brick of Dairy Milk chocolate. I loved his gesture and I still have that card with me. I changed at least 3 apartments so far, but haven’t lost the sight of that card. More than the gift, I loved the gesture and it was something to cheer for.
After these two gifts, I didn’t know what else to expect (partly due to the fact that I was drunk and was running around my Downtown Hartford apartment). That’s when everyone started gathering up. We had my other UConn buddies and everyone that could come over for a quick birthday celebration.
In the middle of all this though, I can’t forget the care and efforts that Shlok & Nidhi put together to bake/make/prepare (I don’t know what’s the correct word here) the cake at home. First of all, I didn’t expect that Shlok would make a homemade cake just for my birthday celebration. I knew he had an ephemeral liking to cook some delicious food, but before this day, nobody had prepped a cake from scratch for me, so I was over the moon when I found that out. I still remember the joy I had when I saw him putting some finishing touches on that cake.
This cake that Shlok & Nidhi made turned out so good, that we finished that one before the store bought cake. Not to steal away the credit from the store bought cake, but the homemade cake was super awesome and we couldn’t resist finishing it first.
Imagining that kitchen countertop and our living/kitchen room from that particular day, brought a soothing smile to my face!
It was an awesome day, with awesome people around and there was nothing but love in that apartment. Do check out some pictures!
Next stop at NYC for my birthday!
stochasticity 