“…Happy Birthday Annieeee…”

‘”All grown-ups were once children but only few of them remember it” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince. You are one among the few…

Happy Birthday Annieeee…..’

This is what my sister’s friend Alston Chettan wrote on a black slate that he gifted my sister Annie for her birthday!!! A black slate with a beautiful quote written on it; I think that’s the perfect gift for my sister!!! She had a BLAST this time I think because she was gifted with 2 things that she never expected even in her wildest dreams! The first one is that tiny black slate and the second one is my gift to her- a giraffe stuffed toy!!!

I remember my sister showing me a picture of a tiny stuffed giraffe she saw at an Archies Store 4 years ago but she couldn’t buy it then. I’d been trying to buy that tiny yellow giraffe for her birthday for the past 4 years but I couldn’t find it anywhere. And then last month while searching for an octopus soft toy for a friend of mine, Octo (it’s her nickname), on Amazon, I found a tiny giraffe quite similar to the one I saw in that blurred image my sister (Chechi) showed me! I couldn’t find a cute stuffed octopus and I bought an ‘elephant pillow’ instead for Octo. I booked these CUTE things together and the giraffe arrived earlier, it was actually delivered when my sister was there at home, she had just returned from the University for her summer break! I somehow convinced her that it was the pillow for Octo.

Chechi’s friends had told me that they were planning to throw a surprise party for her birthday at home, when they called me on my birthday. Chechi has been surprising me on my birthday with EPIC gifts for the past 5 years; this year she sent me a carton full of gifts, from the university! I wanted to surprise her this year and her friends were keen on throwing a surprise party because she told them long ago that she’s never celebrated her birthday with friends because it falls in summer, her friends will be holidaying somewhere then. Her seriously CRAZY friends kept me updated on their party preparations, they planned everything, bought the gifts and then the worst thing happened; my sister went to Tirunelveli to visit our aunt, a week before her birthday! I couldn’t do anything to restrain her.

Chechi got to know that we were planning something for her birthday when I accidentally sent her a message I wrote to a friend of hers, Devika (Devu Chechi) on the eve of her birthday! It was a second after that message was sent that I realized the foolish thing I did! Unfortunately chechi was there online and she read the message before I could delete it! She called me and asked “What’s happening there, are you planning to surprise me, who are you talking to?????” She couldn’t recognize the ‘culprit’ till next morning, when her friends called her to scold her for not being at home rather than to wish her on her birthday!!! Alston chettan was in town that day and he visited her at our aunt’s house.

Chechi returned home on Friday (8th June), surprising me again with 4 things she bought for me; a set of bath toys- a cute duck and 3 ducklings, a tiny yellow ‘elephant pencil sharpener’ and 2 dresses! I was jumping with joy when I saw the CUTE ducks!!! The elephant is just too cute to be used as a pencil sharpener I think, it’s there on my table now, as a souvenir!

The birthday surprise didn’t go completely awry, I gifted her with something that was there on her wish list (it was a coincidence)! When I gave her the giraffe she’d been searching for; she jumped with joy, she even started screaming when she held the cute little thing in her hand!!!! She instantly named him ‘Giru’, it doesn’t make sense though! Giru is there on her table now, she even talks to him!!! I wonder why she says Giru is a boy!

I’m so HAPPY that I got to surprise her the way she’s been doing on my birthdays!!! Our parents watched the whole ‘surprising each other with cute toys’ and they were like “When are you both gonna grow up?!” Yesterday Chechi bought an umbrella with a Mickey Mouse-Pluto-Donald Duck-print; seeing her thrilled face, my father asked “Are you childish because of your pet name, should we change it?!” (Chechi’s pet name is ‘Vava’ which means ‘Little one’ or ‘Baby’). She’s almost 6 years older than me but she’s the more childish one!

I think we all have childishness in us, somewhere, maybe Chechi is just expressing it! Even I’m still fond of animal soft toys!! Chechi ‘looks’ like a geek but her friends consider her ‘the little one’ because they know how childish she is! I think our parents like her childishness because she behaves like a mature woman when she should! Anyways she doesn’t care about what others say about her, after all only her friends will tease her and no matter how old she becomes, she’ll always be our parents’ “little one” and my big ‘little’ sister!!! HAHA

Kunjulekshmi