Competitive Birthday Treats

Banoo Apa (r) celebrates the visit of her son (from Jeddah) with
chocolates. Khatoon Baig (l) in turn treats her to khaja. 

We’ve heard of ‘competitive exams’, ‘competitive programming’, ‘competitive bidding’, even ‘competitive dynamics’. But whoever heard of ‘competitive treating’?
Well, we are seeing this play out as birthdays are being celebrated one after another even as a mega joint-celebration is scheduled for July 24 (ref previous posts). So much so, Khatoon Baig celebrated her birthday (which was on June 4) today with soft, crunchy khajas, lest she be left out of the celebrations.
Yesterday Geeta Latte and Bhaswati Bose celebrated their birthdays and before them, Banoo Apa (July 12) and Naseem Khan (July 13) did the same. They have all pitched in separately for the July 24 mega bash at Kailash Parbat restaurant, together with other July-borns.

Lakshmi Hadimani

Oddly, Khatoon is joining the hosts for that party also, contributing in equal measure.
The idea behind hosting a lavish joint-party in a restaurant was to eliminate the prospect of treating everyone to an unhealthy overeat every other day. At no other time of the year do so many birthdays

Bijoy Gupta regales Khatoon Baig on her birthday celebration

come up in a single month. But such is the eagerness to outdo one another with treats that every individual is ending up celebrating twice.
Bijoy Gupta put it succinctly when he remarked this morning that for once, we are having “double-double birthday celebrations”. Many of course, are enjoying this free overload and take the individual treats as a “trailer” to the main event on July 24. Not just that, we are now told that Santosh Tyagi (whose birthday was on February 10) and Naheed Siddiqui (May 25) have also joined the ‘me too’ bandwagon with the July-borns.
It does not end here. Lakshmi Hadimani, a non-member, who got her son married last December, also wants to pitch in for the July 24 bash. It is her way of celebrating the event, but regrets that she will not have the time to attend the party. She will happy to pay though. Very politely we had to tell her ‘thank you, but no thanks’.

Lt Col Angad Singh (rtd):
The month of Saawan is to enjoy lots of eats and be happy. People have forgotten this because of their fast-paced life. July treats remind veterans of their salad days. Keep enjoying, but please come to the Garden for the exercises.