Thanks a ton for the birthday wishes ...

Thanks a ton for the birthday wishes ...

This day of 10th November, 2007 dawned out for me with phenomenal number of vibrant fun-filled birthday greetings brimming with love from diversified quarters. The spurt of greetings seeded right at 00:00 hours by Pradeep Felix. Though there were a few network hiccups, Airtel was gracious enough to alert me regarding all such missed and unreachable call attempts.

Interestingly, in our community, we seldom attribute importance or significance to the date of birth birthdays. We focus on the Star Birthdays. But the overwhelmingamount of lovely birthday wishes seems to be moving this emphasis in a different way to make this day a memorable one. The spurt of birthday greetings from diversified quarters ranging from business-circle friends, close family friends to Sri Pathinettam Padi Saranam Ayyappa spanning and exhausting all available communication channels in the universe ranging from hearts, Voice over IP telephone lines, instant messaging systems, wireline and wireless telecommunication networks, so on and so forth. But the intensity of love carried by these birthday greetings makes to rethink and redefine the significance and importance of date of birthday too.

It has been my aspiration for the past couple of months that I needed to take the Sabarimala mala this time a bit early since each year due to chronological adjustments and schedules, there is a shortfall of one week to ten days. The actual laxity gets linked to late starting of the vratha each year after Karthigai has started. Hence I thought as a prayschittam (or a compensatory procedure), I would have this taken a bit early than Karthigai, which starts sometime after four days. Again a spurt of messages from my friends greeted while I was in the Madippakkam Ayyappa temple, which is en route to my workplace. With the amount of messages that kept flashing in my mobile after I entered the temple, I percieve them as divine wishes too. Thank you, Ayyappa.

Thank you all again for most lovely and affectionate birthday greetings. With all such affection and love, blessings of the Lord Almighty, together there are more miles to conquer and laurels to win.

The Woods are lovely dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep...
And miles to go before I sleep...