Happy Buddays

While I was thinking about ‘blog worthy’ topics to post, something that was funny and memorable, I realized nothing beats the gal palz birthday party escapades. Btw "Gal Palz" is what we have officially labeled ourselves, complete with branded merchandise ranging from T-shirts, collages declaring everlasting friendships to the customary yahoogroups. "Bindaas Babes" was also strongly rallied for, but then we wanted to keep it real.

Another topic I thought about that came a close second, was documenting how almost each one of us has been called someone’s mom at some point in time (and no, none of us are even remotely lurking around motherhood) …but since that issue is still a little raw I decided it was wise to stay out of it atleast for the time being. I am still recovering from that accusation from our 60 yr old neighbour. Considering she could'nt speak hindi or english to save her life, she butchered me with that one word. I console myself everyday- its not me ...its her !!.

Like every girlie groups (or boyie (?)- girlie groups...I would'nt know as I was always in girlie groups) surprise birthday celebrations have always been a conventional way to show we care. That or just the fact that 'ab ek ke liye party kiya tho sab ke liye party karna hi padega'. We usually stuck with the same protocol ...sometimes even the same wrapping paper- one of the advantageous of not having girls that ransack the whole box to open their gifts. Firstly there would be the spate of emails flying into the inbox at 50 mails/hour. This phase would typically range from a thanda Code Green to a catastrophic Code Red that would be directly proportional to number of days remaining to execute the surprise 'happy budday ritual'. The plan would be to barge into the victims’ room the minute the clock struck 12 and break into the traditional and offkey "happy birthday". This was never really a surprise because each of us knew the gang was standing right outside the door thanks to the loud whispers and the light from the tiny bonfire caused by the 20 something candles. The only time this turned out as a true surprise was when one of the girls playfully warned us not to bother wishing her at 12 and destroy her beauty sleep. Boy...was she surprised, when we obediently did'nt show up !!!

Over the years we have had countless parties. From plain-jane to wild-two-day-hangover kinds. We have had our disagreements over perfumes and photo frames, gift cards and gift receipts. But the memories of each and every person's birthday is still fresh in our minds. Ok maybe not every one of them ...but there are some that stick out:

There was the surprise, for which we drove 4 hours to Chicago, to wish the birthday girl. She had spent the entire day sulking. The drama queen, that she is, quite predictably wouldn’t stop talking about how 'surprised she was' when we all showed up with cakes, candles and confetti. We didn’t have the heart to tell her, we were more interested in her sis’s ghar ka khana and Sony TV not to mention her adorable niece.

Then there was the poolside grill party with bucketloads of chicken and paneer. It was memorable because this probably was our first attempt at doing a la-american pool party. After hours of unsuccessful attempts to light up the grill and seeing that junta had started munching on the raw paneer, entire crew moved back home. To cut a long story short, 3 hrs and a tornado-struck-smoke filled kitchen later, we had enough pav, paneer and chicken kababs to feed a village . The party was for a girl who would rather have sugar in her veins instead of blood. So there were 7 different sweet dishes (one for each day of her birthday week) and three cakes with one baked for the sole purpose of smearing on her face. We not only smother our love, we kill too with our cakes .

I know after reading all this you will sigh and remark “oh such loving and caring friends they are”!!!. Ahem ….I do beg to differ …we are as loving and as caring as a bunch of cannibals can be to a fat meaty human.

We had a treasure hunt party for a girl whose hair was almost set on fire on her birthday the year before …thanks to one very excited female with a candle and matches in her hand. This time we decided to make it fun for her as well. So we hid her gift and the clues to it were also hidden in all kinds of places from the toilet seat to the cereal box. So while she scurried about the house scratching her head for answers, we all busied ourselves with food and drinks.

Then there was the party for which we used the same food, which the birthday girl had made thinking she would surprise us instead. So she creates this elaborate spread and invites us over. Instead we ask her to stop by at our place and while she is on her way, two of us sneak into her place pick up everything she has cooked and bring it over for ‘our party’. Initially she was surprised at how familiar the aloo tasted. But then eventually her Prestige cooker gave it away.

I cannot even begin to mention how wicked we can get towards those who return our hard searched gifts. There are some who have suffered our wrath and all attempts at explaining are just lame. You may hate the color of the dress; the silver chain might get all seriously twisted up; the perfume may make you smell like a skunk. Just because we also gave you a gift receipt doesn’t mean you use it…we just wanted to be nice, we don’t really mean it. Some of them have learned to outwit the gang ...or so they think. Every time we ask her about the jacket we gifted last year, she casually remarks, “Actually na, I have been thinking of wearing it …just waiting for the right occasion”. Hmmm...we need to raid her closet soon.

I may sit and mourn about my increasing age for the rest of the year, but for that one-day I couldn’t be happier celebrating it in the company of these lady goondas ...hey thats a nice name to put on the next group T-shirt.