Birthday Twins and Advices

It is a great statistical possibility, considering there are 8.1 billion of us roaming around in this old earth of ours and only 365 ¼ days in a year, but it is always a happy coincidence when you meet people who share your birthday! It is even more fascinating when these people are close relatives – both consanguineal and affinal, actually also geographic. For me, it is this case with a blood relative and a kin by marriage who live quite close to where I lived, even now still in the same city. One is my mother’s elder sister. The other is my mother’s cousin’s husband.

For some people it might mean three birthday cakes. But we don’t do that very much in my family, except for rare occasions. We’ve never invited each other for cakes or parties. We’ve never sent each other presents. We just acknowledge that we share this birthday, one day before the birthday of Harry Potter, in fact. Although that last bit is only appreciated by me.

My birthday-twin aunt and uncle have each given me tons of advices over the years. My uncle was also my first school principal so advices were general and easy to come by for him. My aunt just likes to make quick decisions in general.

My birthday-twin uncle’s advice is to have integrity and principles. He always says that you will only value hard-earned money. I have extended this to my own life code that no one values money which is not rightfully and deservedly earned. You may enjoy money and the Lord knows how wonderful it is to enjoy what money can give you, but easy money just does not carry the same worth and dignity that your hard-earned money does.

My birthday-twin aunt’s advice? If someone punches you, punch them back.

I’ve also received sound advice from a birthday-twin colleague: always carry a spare pair of glasses with you when you travel. This is actually very sane advice which I recommend to everyone who can’t see very well. It is very real danger when you can’t see and even more painful if you’re in an alien location. Also, helps with motion-sickness, I believe. The glasses, I mean. Which, come to think of it, if you’re thinking of glasses you click with someone, might not help with the nausea. I am talking here of spectacles, my people.

One birthday-twin from my college days (actually even the year of our birth is the same so basically my twin from another parents really), a boy from Nagaland, taught me how to hustle in Delhi’s Arjun Nagar. I don’t remember specific advices from him but from what I can recall, most of his advice could be summed up as: Be aggressive. It is a very handy advice to follow, if you can. Helped me out tons in life in general, I have to say.

Another bit of general advice but not from a birthday-twin: carry a band-aid in your wallet and a pocket-knife in your bag. I follow this (Victorinox has the best SAKs, for reference) and I swear, this has helped me out more than once. Do that, too.

A last advice as a praying Christian from a boy who is not a birthday-twin: if someone asks you to pray for them and you say yes you would, just pray for them on the spot in your head; if you’re waiting for a grand time to include them in your ‘official’ prayers, there’s a chance you’d forget. I like this. I do this now, too.

I start off in one direction and end up in another. Weird.