After a hard pregnancy, where she lost a lot of weight and ate only oranges, my mother’s third child was born. Me. As per legend, I was born at midnight. But the doctor made a clerical decision and wrote my birthday down as 12:05 am, 14 Feb.

My mother’s rule was that on your birthday (and Diwali), you wore everything new. So in the lead up, we would go shopping for a birthday dress in stores filled with all red mannequins. On the day, I would wake up, be wished by my family and get ready for school. You could wear civilian clothes on your birthday in some schools but not mine. My convent school did not encourage excess so I wore my uniform, distributed ‘eclairs’ in class and got a happy birthday song.

After school, I would change into my completely new ensemble and go to the temple with my mother. I never knew what to ask God so I had an all encompassing prayer for most occasions - ‘God, please listen to my mother’.

My mother always bought me a cake. It was usually black forest but sometimes, the only cake left would be a heart shaped cake made with cream and a red jelly on top. I hated these valentine cakes, a reminder of how my birthday had been co-opted by some western holiday. So I would throw a tantrum and only eat the samosas. Most of my gifts would be in cash. The only person who would buy me a gift in kind was my mother’s best friend's daughter with a job. She always gave me gift wrapped books.

When I started going to college, my birthdays had a strange loneliness. How excited everyone was to celebrate your birthday seemed like a measurement of how much everyone liked you. And people didn’t seem very excited. It felt like judgement day. As people started dating, everyone was too busy making grand plans for their dates and crushes. Restaurants were mostly booked out and political parties in Maharashtra were not happy with anyone celebrating anything on the 14th so I guessed it was for the best.