Loot.

Just around Aarti's second birthday, I am all geared up to look at the birthday culture and compare it with the good old 80s when moi was a little girl:-)

My earliest memory of a Birthday dates back to early eighties when I was in Kindergarten and first grade. It used to be fun since you get to spare yourself from the teacher's spankings and everyone in the class treats you like a princess. I particularly remember a period of time during my 3rd grade when I used to start counting days to my next birthday the day my birthday ends this year. Now I dread b'days altogether and they seem to come upon me every now and then, like an unwanted guest.
Okay, staying on track, it was fun to be the birthday girl. If I was very fortunate, I used to score a present or two, usually gold toned earrings and garrish red nail polishes that were probably made in that color alone. I used to go distribute candy in our neighborhood and our next door neighbor, Bunty's mom (a very cosmopolitan, city bred woman) used to give me little trinkets for gifts. They were a big deal for me - a pair of plastic hair clips or a cheesy bead necklace.
I never had a memory of recieving serious gifts, except ofcourse, those Ampro biscuit packets and Parle poppins.

Things have come a long long way in two decades. last year, when I was in India to celebrate Aarti's first b'day, I stayed with my sister in Mumbai for a good one month. My nieces Eesha and Sriya used to come home from playschool every other day, bringing loot bags filled with packs of crayons, water bottle co-ordinated backpacks and even personalized folders and bath robes. These were the "gifts" or "goody bags" they used to get from kids celebrating b'days at school. I was baffled to see the kind of things that had substituted those hard boiled sugar candies I used to distribute for my birthdays when I was a child. The kind of candies which would be recalled here as choking hazards were such a treat back then.

Another shocker was the kind of moolah parents spent on theme parties. During my one month stay in that metropolitian neighborhood, I learnt how birthdays ought to be celebrated with proper themes, theme related food and snacks and theme related dress code and return gifts. My one year old came home one day with her Aunt and cousins after attending a b'day party bringing back a pair of coolers, bandana and a framed photograph in which she was seated on a Kawasaki byke sporting that bandana and goggles. The theme was "Dhoom 2'. Slowly, I learnt about event managers who earned their livelyhoods organizing b'day parties and businesses that personalized water bottles and beach towels that are meant to be given away as gifts to the party animals.

I sit back and think how much of joy those little plastic clips brought or how much it meant to own those cheap fashion earrings. I feel bad for Aarti who would never have the joy I had when I was a kid. Not due to lack of enough stuff but due to lack of moderation. Every time she goes to a party here, she comes back home with a gift that she'd get bored of within minutes. I feel bad that she'd miss out on the fun of having ice cream like I had on those special days of the year where a "kwality family pack" would be stored carefully in that teeny tiny freezer compartment and my siblings and moi would guard the fridge till we get to eat that treat. I feel sorry that she'll miss out on having just enough and cherishing what she has and dread about inculcating in her, the value for things and finding joy in simple pleasures.

I do not know if it is a good thing or bad, but I do know that too much of a good thing can definitely not be wonderful!