Your Birthday Bash

It’s your birthday. That time of the year when your parents experience a moment of regret but force a smile and video-call you. And you don’t answer because you’re hungover. Kinda validates their emotion. But you get up and call them back in high spirits because you’re excited. Tonight’s your night. It’s your birthday party, and your entire ethanol-addicted boys’ club is going to haul their asses into the bar for a night of debauchery only surpassed by 18-year old kids of Bollywood superstars. 

Like most days, you’re distracted at work. This time even more, because you can’t help fantasizing what an amazing night it’s going to be. You entering Deepti Bar & Restaurant and all your friends sitting there together, waiting for their beloved homie to enter the place (which, by the way, is in dire need of a renovation). Them singing birthday songs and hugging you, passing over gifts, and celebrating your life in the best manner possible. Confetti and champagne being sprayed around like you just won the World Cup or something. What a perfect vision, what an exciting possibility for the night…except none of that shit really happens.

You reach there to discover that you’re the first one to arrive. Everyone’s going to be an hour late because their bosses strongly believe that all work and no play gets Jack promoted to Senior Manager. When they do finally arrive, everyone’s in a stinking mood. Some even forget about your existence and directly move towards the bar counter to start bombing their livers into oblivion. 

A few remember your birthday and wave at you for a second, before getting back to their corporate bitching marathons. It sucks really. Nobody even got you a cheap 35 Rs cake from Monginis, leave alone the gifts or any other ideas which were part of your cute hallucinations earlier in the day. All those concepts seem to be alien to this group, whose only intent seems to be to steamroll their way through a week full of vodka supplies. 

After getting a bit more drunk, they do turn towards you and you feel a glimmer of hope- at least some special speech is planned for you, if not expensive gifts from Hermes International. But all your hopes are urinated upon, as they start talking about your most embarrassing stories, adding such vulgar details that you’re suddenly reminded of all those Roadies auditions that you binge-watch late at night. The jokes get nastier due to the effects of alcohol running roughshod over their respective bloodstreams. But it gets boring after a while when they see that they can’t rag your bitter ass anymore…so they get back to chugging.

Some talk about getting the hell out because they’ve got to get up for a 3-hour brainstorming session at 7 AM. Gradually everyone’s on their phones, yelling the location as the Uber driver tries making sense of their slurred speech. Nobody gives a baboon’s ass about your birthday; some of them leave without even saying goodbye. It’s the final nail in the coffin. 

You finally see the reality. They came just for the free shit. Who cares about when you were born? And what a sucker punch that is to your self-esteem. Your fantasies during the day were so misguided that you feel pathetic and start downloading the latest mental health apps on the market. 

Almost everyone's left, which is when the waiter comes with that god-forsaken check. It doesn’t take even a second to tell that the gigantic bill is going to cause a wildfire in your bank account- which is already damaged because your girlfriend wants a 70-day, 69 Nights trip to the Maldives.

The amount written on the bill is so huge that you suddenly turn sober. The five-digit amount is giving you the kind of palpitations that even your Sanskrit board exam never managed to. But then you realize that you’ve only been staring at the food bill. The alcohol bill is separate- and causes a type of migraine that medical science hasn’t confronted yet. 

So you find yourself sheepishly holding the huge-ass bill, a piece of paper so long it almost reminds you of the list of veggies you’d been asked to buy today but totally forgot (out of habit). The prospect of yet another assault on your credit score makes you a bit dizzy (or is it the cheap as hell whiskey?). You never thought the day would come but after tonight’s card swipe, you’ll finally have to call Bajaj Finance.

You suddenly get a call from one of the boys. He says “Sorry bro”. You feel a sense of anticipation- one last glimmer of hope. That even though he spent the night focusing purely on the drinks and masala peanuts, maybe he has a big heart and wants to say some emotional things about your birthday. Then you hear him say “Sorry…I forgot a few extra beer bottles that I’d ordered for another party. Can you just take them with you and hand them over tomorrow evening?”

And that’s the final blow to your prestige. You cut the phone, clear the bill (triggering a 2008-style personal financial collapse), and carry those bottles, being the mega-loser you are. But hey, that’s totally fine. After all, what are friends for?