Hey, It's Your Birthday, Bro!

Your birthday, in my opinion, should be the most important day in the year for you because it marks the celebration of the most significant person in your life - YOU! While I love celebrating my birthday with my friends and I like receiving calls from all my near and dear ones, my brother is quite the opposite. He is someone who likes keeping to himself; and birthdays are a rather tedious affair for him because he is expected to answer calls and respond to messages. For my brother, his birthday is just like any other day of the year. "I do not need one particular date to know that I have become older and wiser," he often used to argue with me. There were times when he did not even bother wishing me at midnight despite being in the same house because he did not think it mattered. I found myself getting, both,  exasperated and amused at the way he functioned. However, since his birthday always fell in the middle of holidays, almost every year, we planned a vacation around that time, and escaped the humdrum of our daily life. 

This is the second time in the last three years that my brother is not in the same city as I am for us to celebrate his birthday together. We aren't even in the same country and it feels funny wishing him at midnight (as per the time-zone in the country he inhabits). It is at these times that I realize the proximity created by phone calls, messages, Skype are nothing but illusions. Nothing can beat the actual physical presence.

It was one fateful day when the word "sibling" came into my existence - the day when peace, privacy, secrets and the undisputed right to the remote control vanished forever! I think my brother holds a rather peculiar place in my life. As a child, I think there were days when I declared that I would be so much better without him; yet I could not really imagine what my life would be like if he hadn't been a part of it. There are times when I wish my brother would leave me alone and then there are occasions when I need my brother and appreciate his company. He is someone with whom I am comfortable sharing almost everything about my life - he is more of a friend and my partner-in-crime than a pain-in-the-neck in the form of a brother. Now, when I think of it, life would just not be the same if I did not have my brother to share it - no joke would seem so funny, no mistake so droll. 

Although I love my brother very much, I have never said this to him on his face even though I have meant it every single day. I guess that is the way with siblings...On his twenty-first birthday, however, I want him to know that he is one of the most important persons in my life and I absolutely adore him!