R baked my favorite apple cinnamon upside-down
cake on my birthday eve. Pater, Mater and perhaps sis were expecting I’d cut my cake
soon. I desisted. Birthday cake must always be cut on one’s birthday. And at a
decent hour. Not at midnight for the middle of the night social media pix / fix! Which anyhow, rest of the world would see the next day.
Next morning, or on my birthday, I cut the
cake after our (R’s, ma’s, and mine) morning cup(s) of tea. Conversation flowed
like it does every morning, about this and that and menu for the day. Suddenly ma sang out “Happy birthday
to you” and just as sudden went back to conversing with R.
A couple of hours later, ma asked me to get
some dhania pata from the fridge. I told her that it was already in the
kitchen. She then asked me to get something else out, which too was already in the
kitchen. She seemed to think of something else and then laughed. Open the fridge.
Your cake. What cake? Its already on the table. While I was in my room doing yoga,
a white forest cake was delivered, which R had to receive and then hide it in
the fridge. Now I had 2 cakes. Felt for R. All her plans to surprise me, bheste
gelo!
In the middle of it all, Baba came out of his
room, saw me and said “Happy new year”. Bojho! Seeing the look on my
face, he said, “New year, for you".