By Siddharth
8th November has – at least in the last few years – witnessed a mellow birthday celebration. A family trip to the hills, a lunch with a few close friends, or (in the midst of last year’s application season) a simple takeout from my favorite restaurant. Over the years, the appeal of a huge birthday party with all the pomp gradually faded and was replaced by a low-key gathering with no gifts. This is all to say that a raging epidemic searing through the country at an exponential pace did little to obstruct my regular birthday plans.
The celebrations this year were much of the same, barring the lunch with my friends which was replaced with a midnight Zoom call. The rest of the day saw me taking a break from my research internship and instead deciding to inhale all of Netflix with a tubful of my mother’s signature velvet mousse. As the evening came to a close, my dad had arranged for me my favorite street food: two jumbo-sized samosas from the takeout counter of ‘The Embassy’ in Connaught Place. What followed was a family game of Monopoly, where my brother and I build up our appetites the best way we know: accusing the other person of cheating endlessly. The Monopoly session concluded just in time for my all-time favorite Domino’s Pizza order: 1 medium, thin crust Chicken Dominator with a side of chicken wings and a Choco Lava Cake to top it all off.
In the last 4-5 years, I’ve always opted in for the pleasant and easy-going party instead of an all-out birthday bash. And thankfully, despite the pandemic, this year was no different
