HBD, Forsooth!

 

Sometime between the small hours and 6 AM on 11th December, my wife called out “Happy Birthday” in her sleep. I murmured “Thank you” in return. I think we smiled at each other and the moment drifted away. The horror began around 6.15 AM when a batchmate, not much of a friend but almost human all the same, posted the momentous announcement “HBD, Mani” in a rather large batchmates’ WhatsApp group. That one message was enough to unleash an avalanche. Suddenly, batchmates of every description began inflicting me with vacuous greetings, all of them exhorting me to achieve the impossible in my remaining lifespan, which they generously wished would go on forever. Messages like “Live forever and keep spreading sunshine like you always do,” “We rejoice with you as you celebrate your birthday today. The very best is yet to come,” and “May your special day be filled with all the good things that you deserve, and may all your wishes come true,” flooded the screen. Indeed. Just because a bunch of ageing gentlemen with nothing better to do decided to issue these idle decrees about the glorious path I must now tread, I was suddenly duty-bound to sit up and laboriously type out a thank-you note to each of them.

Batchmates’ groups. These are the cardinal, ever-present clusters that one is condemned to join: the middle-school group, the high-school group, the college group, the professional-college group and, finally, the professional group. Some groups, thankfully, have been tamed by administrators who prohibit insipid greetings and ridiculous forwards. The insipid greetings include wishes for festivals you had never heard of and could very well live without, such as Akshaya Tritiya, Govardhan Pooja, Maundy Thursday and Mariä Himmelfahrt. Even more perplexing is the sovereign of WhatsApp inanities: “Have a Good Tuesday.” The forwards, however, come in several varieties. The most common are those sent by people afflicted with Compulsive Forwarding Syndrome. These gems are never read by anyone, whether sender or receiver, and are simply propelled from one idiot to a larger congregation of idiots. Particularly irritating are the supremely boring jokes that test the already low standards of WhatsApp humour, as well as the contrived and painfully long ones that force you to scroll a thousand times. If someone recently tried reading such a joke aloud from their phone, you may have been tempted to strangle them. Perhaps you resisted, but if you had gone ahead, I could probably defend you in court on the grounds of self-defence. There are also those tyrannical forwards that threaten divine wrath if you fail to read or, more specifically, forward the drivel. And who can forget the presumptuous orders that declare “Must Read” or “Must Share.” Just because some dumbass has a puerile sense of humour or an impoverished intellect combined with an A+ in gullibility, you must now waste your precious time hunting for the Delete button.

The gullible ones themselves come in various sizes. The petite variety already believes a certain amount of nonsense and instantly swallows anything that supports their existing delusions. The medium-sized ones believe anything at all, provided it arrives as an email or phone forward. The plus-sized ones are the most formidable. They never believe what you tell them face to face, even if you quote credible sources, because they are naturally argumentative and believe their life’s mission is to oppose, contradict and quibble. Yet, fling at them some harebrained digital absurdity or fakery and they will absorb it with the enthusiasm of a sponge.

Then there are the Facebook birthday wishes. Facebook is the world’s favourite social network and, to be fair, it has its uses. Yet many of its benefits are cancelled out by the all-pervasive natural stupidity that flourishes there. Some people treat their Facebook page as a public photo album and imagine that all their friends, or in many cases the entire Facebook universe, is eager to admire their mug or torso from five different angles, whether at home or on holiday. A flood of poppycock comments follows, and everyone involved earns the right to respond with their own brand of photographic narcissistic baloney. The vacationers are even more entertaining. They proudly announce where they are headed, often posting a smiling selfie from the airport or expressway, as if burglars have nothing better to do than monitor their updates. Others feel compelled to inform the world that they had a stomach upset or, even more gravely, that they underwent a CT scan and that something or the other was about to crumble. Who exactly is this supposed to interest apart from health insurers, who will now be delighted to raise their premiums. The truth is that people crave attention and recognition. Most of us do not get as much as we think we deserve, so Facebook steps in to help, operating on the simple principle of you scratch my back and I scratch yours. Before you know it, voilà, you have so much attention that you spend two hours each day clearing out the accumulated Facebook fluff and fatuity.

I don’t care much—actually, let’s be honest, I rather dislike—being wished on my birthday or, for that matter, greeted for anything from a routine Good Morning to a full-throated Happy Govardhan Puja. Birthday wishes are particularly tricky. It is entirely possible that a few messages aren’t part of that relentless parade of mini-messages churned out by habitual broadcasters, but genuine notes sent with a moment’s thought. Many, of course, are generated because Facebook Calendar jabbed the sender in the ribs, and the greeting arrived on autopilot. But surely not all. So is it considered normal if I simply post one omnibus thank-you note? Or do I get the benefit of doubt, excused as the chronically careless, absent-minded fellow I’m known to be, someone blissfully inattentive to such digital courtesies? I have no clue. So I hobble along, grumbling under my breath yet replying on impulse.

Seeing this perennial dilemma, someone suggested I hide my birthday on Facebook and similar platforms so only those who truly remembered would poke me on the day. Well, first things first—I do like them poking me, just not specifically on my birthday. And really, do I need Facebook to conduct a census of my real friends? No, thank you. Not for me.

 

This little catharsis, dear reader, does not include you, especially if you were kind (or impolite) enough to wish me a happy birthday. You are excused and excluded. And despite all the angst I nurse against these HBD types, I must admit I did appreciate some of the messages that came in this time. I have no idea whether they were original creations or recycled gems, but I enjoyed reading them. A few samples:

 

  - Kind of Happy Birthday, pal! They say age is just a number. For you, it is a really, really big number.

  - Many many happy returns of the day. They say that with age comes wisdom. That must make you one of the wisest persons in the world!

  - You are finally old enough that your hair loss is no longer premature. Enjoy your birthday!

  - I know you do not like birthdays, but good news: there probably aren’t many left. So as long as you are still around, make the most of it. Happy birthday!

 

Come to think of it, what is all this fuss about birthdays anyway? For a child, it is merely an excuse to celebrate with friends and family, while the parents plan everything with the little one floating in blissful anticipation. A birthday is, after all, a day like any other. But since you cannot celebrate every day, the concept of birthdays had to be invented. Adults hardly need an occasion to celebrate, and even if they do, why choose something as presumptuous as the day you were ushered into the world?

Let me turn to the Bard in Antony and Cleopatra. It happens to be Cleopatra’s birthday. She is looking for an opportunity to celebrate, but Antony is already pissed off by the spiteful visit of Caesar’s messenger. Then Antony suddenly gets a second wind and orders all the wine pitchers to be filled. The previously forsaken Cleopatra is delighted and says, “It is my birthday. I had thought t’ have held it poor; but since my lord Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.”  In other words, birthday or no birthday, she is far happier celebrating Antony’s change of disposition.

I prefer to ignore birthdays rather than hate them, especially my own. And if that is the case, wouldn’t it be smugly pretentious to imagine that my birthday holds any profound meaning for others? It isn’t as if I am indulging in some form of masochism. I do not resent having been born; after all, how could I possibly dislike my own birth when I have no clue what would have happened to me had I not entered this world in the first place? Since this line of thought is now drifting into the misty realm of metaphysics—threatening to unravel my very being—it is time to call upon Ghālib to untangle it for me:

Na thā kuchh to ḳhudā thā kuchh na hotā to ḳhudā hotā

Duboyā   mujh ko hone  ne  na  hotā maiñ   to  kyā hotā

When nothing existed, God existed; if all were to return to nothingness, He would still remain. My existence has sunk me; if I had not existed, what would I have been or what would it be? The couplet conjures a mystical image of God’s omnipresence, juxtaposed with the futility, or at least the troublesome burden or surrealism of existence. The sense is that when I was “nothing,” I was, in a way, God. If I had never existed at all, I would also have been God. Existence, with all its worldly clutter—its artifices, banal routines, and counterfeit wisdom—entraps us in the realm of the ordinary. This lack of enlightenment makes us draw distinctions between the creator and the created, even though they are inseparable and suffused into a single truth. In this light, a plausible tashreeh (interpretation) of the couplet emerges: when I was nothing, I was one with the divine; but, alas, having become “something,” I am now adrift in an ocean of illusion, estranged from the omnipresent, benevolent creator. This worldly existence, distanced from Truth, loses all meaning.

No comparison but I quote Dahir Dehlavi here on the Sufi takhayyul:

Thā  anal-haq l ab-e-mansūr* pe kyā aap se aap

thā jo parde meñ chhupā bol  uThā  aap se aap

*I am Truth, I am God, Sufi Mansoor was hanged for proclaiming this.

This sudden detour into mystical marvels may feel a bit jarring, so allow me to summon a more earth-bound Ghālib to steady the mood. Consider this: The well-known birthday refrain, “Tum jiyo hazāron saal, saal ke din hon pachaas hazaar”, actually goes much further back than this popular film song we all know. It is said that its real ancestor is a cheeky, and rather toady, nazm (poem) the master once addressed to Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Ghālib had arrived in Delhi when the Mughal sun was setting and the British star was uncomfortably brightening. He received a royal stipend only once in six months, a schedule that was wonderfully poetic but financially ruinous, especially for a man whose expenses included both wine and wit. It is said that, tired of the long wait, he wrote a nazm (poem) to the emperor, dutifully listing his monetary miseries, pleading for monthly payment, and sprinkling praise thick enough to butter an elephant.

It contained the immortal lines:

Tum jiyo* hazāron baras,

Har baras ke din hon pachaas hazaar

(May you live for thousands of years, May each year contain fifty thousand days. *Another version says, salaamat raho or be safe and sound.)

And a diehard fan like me can only sigh and say—Et tu, Ghālib.

And with this, I sign off with a gentle disclaimer to friends and family who wished me well, assuring them that I wrote all this with malice towards none. Truly, I do value your wishes, your greetings, and even your questionable GIFs of cakes exploding in digital confetti. But I must also offer a small defence in my favour, borrowing and happily twisting poor Malvolio’s lament from the Bard’s Twelfth Night:

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some, on their birthdays, have wholly undeserved greatness thrust upon ’em, mainly by people who believe a WhatsApp sticker is an act of divine benevolence.”

Amen!

...

 

(to be continued on my next birthday… 😊)