Or, a brief history of birthday celebrations
It all started some millennia ago in a cave in Western Africa.
Cave-woman Abebi was proud of her cave-man son Bobo. Bobo himself was of the considered opinion that he was a fine, fine specimen (not that Bobo had contributed anything particularly useful to the human experiment – apparently, Bobo’s mere existence was deemed by mother and son alike to be reason enough for jubilant celebration on the twentieth anniversary of his birth). With limited knowledge of the calendar, the birthday was probably off by weeks, may be months, but who cared! Well, I take that back; people cared very much – not least the next-cave neighbor, cave-woman Abena (cave-woman Abebi’s first cousin on the father’s side), who resolved to make her son’s coming birthday (Abebi had called it ‘bigdeel’ in cave-language) an even grander affair.
Okay. I made that up – the first birthday was celebrated probably in Greece or China, since most things originate from the one or the other.
But if some energetic researcher ever digs up this chapter of human history, I suspect the story may not turn out to be all that different from the above. Given human nature, once started it was bound to catch on because it passed the necessary silliness-condition in flying colors. For if there’s one thing that defines humans it’s their capacity for imitation, especially when it comes to foolish acts. Combined with fossil records, this propensity of aping on the part of homo-sapiens makes a very convincing case for our having evolved from monkeys. A friend once happened to leave a tense conference room in the middle of a passionate debate, only to realise that he had been followed by fifteen-odd people, each one of whom was congratulating him on his courage to stage a walk-out on principle, in the process showing the way to them all. The reality was (as my friend later confided to me but somehow couldn’t bring himself to admit to his devoted followers) that the only reason he had left the room was that he could not delay his visit to the loo for even a moment longer!
Coming back to birthday bashes (as they are now called), rituals started getting added as ‘culture’ and technology progressed. Cakes, candles, the happy-birthday song, charming phrases such as ‘My big day’, photographs and gifts are of a much recent vintage. One thing that never changed however was the sheer stupidity of the whole thing.
But for all their limitations, birthday parties used to be fun.
There was a time, and not too long ago at that, when they were thoroughly enjoyable affairs – and for good reason too, because they were about singing and games and having a good time. Over and above everything else, they were about food. Even incorrigible philosophers believing in the futility of all existence used to enjoy them – even hard-core nihilists are rarely if ever indifferent to food. But birthdays are not about any of these things any more. They are now about one thing and one thing alone: photoshoots. It seems everybody’s way too concerned about recording all proceedings for the benefit of posterity to be able to have fun or let anyone else have it. This has proven to be the death-knell for all spontaneity.
Sometime after the invention of direct-dialing, somebody probably had an epiphany: he thought it would be a brilliant idea to wish someone a happy birthday at the stroke of midnight. The odds however are that the pioneers of this were boys and girls in love, being always on the lookout, and thankful for any excuse under the sun to get in touch with their sweethearts, birthdays or not. (Though definitely not something to write home about, people in love can be forgiven for worse.) Before you could have said ‘monkey-like mimicry’ however, this too had become pretty much a ritual, even outside romantic relationships, and therefore in extremely bad taste. This has since crossed over to the social media, and long after it has worn off any novelty it may have had, many people take offence if you don’t wish them at 12 am sharp. The practice of cutting a cake at that hour, of course followed by a ‘proper’ party the next evening, is quickly taking root.
The digital camera and the smart phone did the rest. For example, is there anything as stupid as the picture of birthday-cakes? Or other eatables? Taken when scores of people would much rather be outside them than see them and the people and the walls getting photographed interminably?
I have started loathing birthdays because there’s so much waiting and posing and pictures, and I like to think that the only healthy attitude in the presence of food is to eat the damn thing, not picturise it for posterity. One would have thought that people would realise that nobody is interested in their ‘big days’ nearly as much as they themselves are; and that their meticulous recording of all details would hardly change the fact that they are mere blips in the history of the world. Few things remain worthwhile if the focus shifts from the process to the end-result. Birthdays are no exceptions. Even moderately intelligent people are now subconsciously resigned to their fate and arrive with a hopeless resolve to ‘enjoy’ the party no matter how miserable they know they will inevitably be.
Of course, it will be unfair to single birthdays out – they are just an instance of the general human tendency of senseless imitation. Many of the attendant traditions of weddings and burials consist of equally – if not more – foolish acts. The ‘evolution’ of these phenomena shows that silliness, in any shape or form, is very much like drugs in that it takes bigger and bigger doses for you to get any sort of kick out of it.
For the record: The author has been part of many a birthday party and the like – on some occasions in a central capacity too. He is not proud of the fact. Furthermore, he wishes to state in his defense that at no time after the age of fifteen was he blind to the utter silliness involved.