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.

Counting Lives

My parents are often upset that I do not attend church as regularly as they like. They also find it concerning that when I do, I pay close attention and seem to come home finding things to argue with or complain about. It is true that I also come home finding things to applaud and rhapsodise over but we often focus on the negative.

Anyhoo. Last Saturday, about ten minutes before night service started, I turned to my sister and said: Hey, wanna go attend service? She shrugged and said: Yeah ok. Which is how my other sister found the house empty and probably thought the Rapture had happened and she alone of our family had been Left Behind. She did blast out a lot of texts asking each one of us where we were and what happened and why was the house empty. As for us, we were in church and listening to people sharing their outpourings. Holy. The Rapture should have happened then.

One of the men who shared his thoughts with us said we as Mizo have recently copied white people so much that we keep celebrating birthdays every year. If it is not a milestone, there is no need to single out one day so much. We should be thankful for every second of every day all year round.

After church, my parents were surprised to see me walk out of church. The smurfing duo actually was wide-eyed at the sight of me! We walked out together and I said to wait for me while I go get the car. My brother saw me and the smurfer actually pointed at me and his jaw dropped. The smurfs.

At home, drinking post-church tea, I said, “About tonight’s service...” and of course, everyone braced themselves to my latest observation. Which is this:

I only half-agree with the man. I agree that us Mizo have copied white people too much to the point of suffocating our own culture. I however think it is alright to copy the good parts of white culture, specifically in relation to their work culture and theme of self-independence. I agree with him that we should be thankful for all the time we have. I disagree that only specific Jubilee worthy milestones should be celebrated for the very simple reason that we all need reminders every now and then. We all need breathers. We all need a dedicated time to stand back and reflect on the gifts we have enjoyed.

I don’t think it is essential to celebrate birthdays with cakes and balloons and pork fats. But a reminder to give thanks for all the years that we have accumulated when even a swallow of water down the wrong pipe can kill us is very much on track. We are very mortal, you know. If your existence is a fixed point in time anyway and there’s nothing that can be done about that, having survived a full year is a huge reason to celebrate.

So it was a good observation I think? I didn’t complain. And while it was not a rhapsody, it was a glass half-full half-empty situation. Which

has to be a win.

Also my family gave me gifts on Sunday because I have successfully completed one more cycle around the sun and this is a distinctive achievement I make as well as bestow upon them the gift of me. Some of their gifts were snarky, like my dad who gifted me a container of imli sweets because I steal his own stock of imli sweets every time I am home. But the rest were not snarky. Then again, even the snarky one was tasty so we are good.