The birthday Act :-)

I had another bday just pass by. This one was special. For the first time in my life, i had a group to work around me and surprise me with all the events. I had my cube all decorated with baloons,birthday wishes, presents and more presents. They put a lot of effort to make things work out. First, it was the gift, a photo frame, which was taken from a trip, which now i realise which was for taking that snap alone. Second it was the gift coupon which was bought right under my nose, and without any hinting tat it was for me. Third, the cake, which again got close to being caught but I really did not realize it until the day.This was the closest I could guess coz this was really close to my birthday. However I could only relate to all the events on the D-Day. Man!! that was some planning which had gone for my birthday. Maybe I was naive not to have learnt it and somehow it worked well for them as well as me.Talk about pleasant surprises. Yeah who doesnt like them?? This was just perfect. All in all the gang ,so i wish to term,has gelled so well, that i feel privileged to be a part of it. So thats the preview, lemme try to dig into the details.

The D-Day, my birthday. My sis was the first person to message me the previous evening. It was customary to have tat but it did get a smile on my face. Midnight rings, and my phone too. This time again my sis. But I m already asleep. WTH? I m getting older, 27, why fuss about the bday anyways. Morning dawns, my mom rings me up at 6:20. First question, what are you doing? Confused me, I tell her you just woke me up :-P. Then comes the wish. Smile is back on my face. My family totally got the points for being the first to wish me. Then it was a message from my ex which I least bothered to reply to. But I was surprised at not having anything from my friends or colleagues. This got me thinking. I get all set to head for the office on my bike. Everything is fine until I get my first surprise of the day. KR puram bridge just let me through without any fuss. :-). That actually was nice feeling for a change. But all that smile and surprise vanished as I reached Hennur signal. Time 9:20ish. I think I would be in office by 9:45 or so. Thanks to the rain on the previous night and some other god foresaken reasons, it took me more than an hour to reach office. This ,mind you wont be a distance more than 4kms. Even on a bike, the traffic was crawling. I did not want to think of souls stuck on their 4 wheelers at all. Usually I laugh at them when there is such a traffic, but I was at the recieving end too, so I couldnt help but feel frustrated. In the mean while I get 3 calls. 2 to wish me birthday. And one from Nishanth asking me about a design doc. :-S. I was like, people are already working and here I am crawling. Maybe its an effect of over listening to crawling by LP that lead to this situation, I humoured to myself to bring on some relief to my agonizing and frustrating experience thus far in the traffic. As I entered the office premises, I thanked god. But wait, why is water everywhere around? Where are the roads? I realize I have to take a turn and go round about to park the bike. I look skywards as if to ask god, What Nextt???. The rains had made roads into mini pools of water. The confusion and frustration just continued.

Finally the lift lobby. The day was so perfect that the building authorities decided not to operate them coz they feared people might get electrocuted and fumed. I was fuming already without getting electrocuted. I Walk all the way up to the floor. After doing some really hard work I finally got to my floor and as i neared my cube, I could see it was not the familiar cube I m used to. As i went around I could see a thread pulled across my cube with all the movie cutouts from paper.The cutouts looked familiar.Wait a min! Isnt this that I saw at Samitha's desk few days back?. I couldnt help but smile. So I gently removed the thread from one end and before I could even relax, I could see Samitha gesturing at me very angrily!! I was thinking to myself, did i do something wrong? I went over to clarify and I got the point. I am not supposed to remove that thread with movie cutouts hung on it for the whole day. Then one by one people in my team come and wish me. The gang comes up to my desk, joined in by some more people thanks to the wonderfully decoratedcube. I am made to sit in my cube and then the birthday song. :-) as a chorus orchestrated by Neeraj. I havent had this since my school days. That was a rousing start to the day after a clumsy and forgettable journey to the office. After this,the customary coffee/tea break, or kaapi/chaya breaks as some of us term it in office. As usual we all head to the cafeteria and happily sit for coffee. The gang suddenly quizzed me about the gift. I was so tired, I just wanted to have a coffee. But they made me go back to my cube and get the gift. As I m back I see a black forrest cake on the table. Flashback,I rememberd how Rashmi reacted when I told her few days back tat I like choclate cake while looking at the cake counter in the cafeteria. She had quizzed back about black forrest then. So now I know. After cutting the cake I am made to open the gift cover. Its a foto frame with my foto taken by Nishanth taken on a trip to Nandi hills some 3 weeks prior. The gang tells me that it was a trip only to get my pics so that one could be framed and gifted. Man, so much for a birthday gift. As I open the gift, I get another gift coupon. Now I remember asking Joshy about these first. Coz he is the first person who told me about existence of such a thing at land mark. This was a part of post Nandi trip evening shopping which i was a part of.
All these event happened right infront of me, and still I just could relate to them only on the D-Day. Perhaps I was least expecting such amount of planning just for a birthday. This truely made me feel special. And I have no doubts in terming this as my grandest birthday celebrations ever.Emotions ran high and dry through the day but in the end it was truely a memorable day for me.Thanks a lot to the GANG.