At my office birthdays are a big deal. I don't know what other offices around here do but at ours, the order of things is:
- Cut the cake. While cutting the cake everybody claps and sings "Happy Birthday".
- Your nearest friends each grab a piece of the cake with their hands and feed you a bite.
- Then they dot some of the cake on your forehead (like what you would see in a Hindu temple).
- Then they smear the cake all over your face.
- While you excuse yourself to wash the oily cake off your face, everybody has a piece.
- For the brave guys, when you get back you get your bumps. (I think this may come from the British) One guy grabs your arms and another your legs and they bump you up and down.
Thankfully for them, they took off my glasses so I couldn't tell who to give a bad performance reviews.
This is me after the ritual:Posh Spice: Merinda's 30th Birthday
A bunch of Merinda's friends led by Marcia put together a suprise 30th birthday party. She was completely surprised. Squeals of delight and total embarrassment.
It was fun getting together Merinda's "European/Australian" buddies, and her Mormon friends:
Here's Marcia, Lesley & Kerali. Marcia tried to mix it up so there was something for both groups--alcohol and party games.This one was a game where you had to try and get people to guess what was written on their foreheads.
Unfortunately, Merinda is a bit behind on her popular culture. Even getting her to "British pop singer married to David Beckham" didn't get her the real answer....
Monkeys: Graham's 2nd Birthday
The first thing we did was went with Sister Glaris to the Delhi Zoo.
Since it was hotter than the blazes we blew up our little pool and let the kids run around. Our local monkey-wallah seems to have a sixth sense about when there is a birthday because it didn't take long before he came down the road on his bicycle with his monkeys beating the drum. So we let him in for a monkey show, which Graham completely enjoyed (here he's feeding the monkey a green bean).
Here's Graham with the whole gang: Russell, Dad, Graham, Merinda, Isaac, Pooja, Lakshmi, Margaret, and Shiva. Was meant to be a family party, but "family" is a very fluid concept in India!
Eunuchs: Isaac's 7th BirthdayFor Isaac's birthday we invited all of his classmates. I think all in all we had about 25 kids. The balloon man came, as usual and blew up around 100 balloons with his mouth. This time though we had an interesting addition to the party--a hijera! Here he/she is doing a little dance. They show up at big events and want you to pay them money to take away the evil spirits from your event. They're sort of like atonement figures, I guess. I think Rich gave them some money and they went on their way.
The theme for the party was magic, so we played "The Disappearing Kid" with toilet paper! This is Isaac magically making Yotam disappear. Isaac and Dad also did a pretty successful magic show with ropes that go through people and magical reading of cards and ipod speakers that magically turn on. Isaac was so excited for this part and has now enrolled in a magic class after school taught by a professor (of magic?) who tells the kids over and over never to do a trick more than once for someone. So Isaac's not getting much practice! But he's pretty good judging from the ONE time I've seen him do each trick . . .
Here's the cake that Merinda made herself with some help from Margaret at the beginning and end. I don't know why I keep insisting on making my own cakes because it makes me crazy and tense and I'm not even good at it. This one is supposed to be a magic hat with a bunny popping out. The hat collapsed though. :(
And that's all for the birthday season for the Cutlers. Stay tuned for more festivities at Diwali and Christmas!
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