Piranda Naal Vaazhthukkal... Feliz Cumpleaños...

April 10th was the day I was born. Usually my birthdays are celebrated on this day unless something drastic happens -- which has, thankfully, not happened so far. I woke up to the usual early birds that decided to torment me today (just like any other weekend, i suppose) with phone calls. Of course, when I scold, they come up with flimsy excuses citing lunar eclipses, radar failure, Iridium contamination etc. Today being my day, I magnanimously pardoned them (mostly with the devious intention of receiving their gifts before scolding them)... as a result of my brilliant strategy, i am now the proud owner of an electronic dart board, a heavy key chain, half a cake, some greeting cards and a greeting card guised as a powerpoint presentation (these sweet geeks!). And these wonderful people had also cleverly figured out that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach... they fed me an abundance of idlis and dosas along with plenty of home made gulab jamoons and machine made rosogullas. My normally stoic roommate A and his ebullient friend S made yummy omlets in the afternoon and A (dubiously?) claimed he made it for me. :-) Put to sleep by the abundance of affection, my head even conjured up a dream in the midst of my happy afternoon siesta -- I discover an error in the clark tables ("log book"). And while I was busy trying to figure out the ramifications of my discovery for science in general, S called and woke me up. After rambling something for a while, I went back to blissful sleep...