Birthday Girl graduates to become Birthday Aunty

As is annual custom in my diary, I am busy moping today.

Last night I was out for a Bolloywood Nite at Aqua. Apparently it was my Birthday Party. But as I was painfully correcting everyone, my birthday is not a party. It is a funeral of a perfectly good-sounding year killed from my introduction. Forever.

Yesterday was particularly traumatic as my twenty-somethingness was in its last throes. Possibly, my dancing too was in its last throes, judging from the looks I got. But when you are twenty-nine years down and the thirtieth has begun to tick you get some rights to display uncoolness.

Many people tell me that thirty is not the end of the road. However, an exact 100% of such people are older than colour-TV in India and remember watching Chitrahaar as children, and therefore have no credibility.

So if you are about to wish me a happy birthday, do not expect any smiling "Thank You darling! (muah, muah)", unless of course you are accompanied by a birthday gift/birthday money in which case thanks for contributing to my drowning-sorrows-fund.

I can see clearly now!

I still remember the night I saw the most beautiful moon ever. It was the beginning of summer vacations and I was in our school's bus-yard, waiting with my friends to set off on a hiking trip to Manali. Leaning against the bumper, I happened to look up and saw the most luminous, milky sphere I'd ever seen.

I am normally not given to sentimental nature conversations, but this time I couldn't help it. "Neha," said I, "doesn't it look just gorgeous tonight?"
"What does?" she asked.
"The moon, over there," I pointed.
"Hmmmmm, yes, the moon is looking great! But why are you pointing there?"
I squinted, and realised that my moon was one in a line of six moons.
I put on my fat spectacles and realised my moon was one in a line of six streetlights.
I removed my binoculars back into my pocket...life's so much prettier without spectacles. Confusing and smudged, sure, but way prettier.

The only downside for us -8.5ers is:
Smiling at people we "recognise" through the haze but who we actually have never met before
Scowling at friends who shout "hello" from the distance who we assume must be roadside Romeos
*********************

But that's all in the past now. I finally mustered enough courage to go through Lasik last month, and am pleased to report it works! I no longer flail my arms when i search for the screaming cellphone alarm in the morning. And I don't bump into the cupboard during midnight loo visits. I can hardly wait to swim with my eyes open under water. And since I no longer need to claw off my lenses before sleeping, I look forward to nodding off on the couch in the middle of cricket matches.

There's a whole new world out here and I can see it!