On the Subject of Birthdays Over the past few years, I have insisted that my family do not give me birthday gifts, instead the money should be donated to their favourite charity. At 87 I should be clearing out the cupboards, not collecting more junk. They can, if they prefer, pay for something I have bought for myself anyway. (This is me being cunning,) So Kitta and Manju are paying for the John Snow book, THE STATE OF US, which I have pre-ordered, and THE CONCERT FOR GEORGE video, which brought so many of the big singers together. I keep listening to Billy Preston singing ‘My Sweet Lord.’ I have reached that harmless age! I have to remember that birthdays were non-events in my childhood in Thalassery. Velyamma (aunt) would not give me my morning coffee until after my bath, and prayers at the household shrine, evidenced by a smear of sacred ash on my forehead. There were no new clothes, gifts, or fanfare. Achan did not notice; in any case the date of the birthday varied from year to year because it was my birth-star-sign that was significant, not the date. So, the day could fall on any date between mid-April and mid-May. It was my husband, Balan, who started the gift-giving when our boys were three and five years old. Balan was brought up in Colombo, in an affluent home, which of course took gifts seriously. It was all a question of habit and expectation. Life in Thalassery was pared down; my father had a large joint family to sustain. He was determined to make me understand that. Later, when he stopped practising (he was a lawyer) he handed the responsibility towards the clan to me. I had to pay for roof-rethatching, school fees etc for some relatives. Gradually, that generation died, or their children became prosperous; they no longer needed me. As I became old, then older, my children indulged me, until I called time on that. I have a new rule in my house: on birthdays my children must obey all my ’commands.’ Fetch tea, indulge me to watch news several times a day, not complain when I play Indian music loudly in the sitting room… This works!