Highlights of Birthday Weekend 3rd to 5th
Birthday boy of 3rd August woke up very early in the morning around 7:15AM and started looking at the gifts Bharathi got for him. Needless to mention that he was been interrupted by numerous calls. It seems Bacchu told him to take a picture with all the gifts he had, and that’s it. He found another good reason to insist on, and readily posed for a picture.
Since, I returned on 2nd from London after couple of days work there, I was working late till 1:00 am at home and did not get time to decorate the house. We had planned to visit temple at Leeds (around 5-6 miles away from home). We had been there in the morning offered prayers and returned back, as Bharathi was working from home that day and for a change I took a day off.
Bharathi was trying hard to put him to sleep in the afternoon and after a brief sleep, this chote nawaab woke up in the evening around 5pm. Seeing Bharathi on the net, he wanted to surf and play online games, which he did. After sometime, Bharathi asked him to move out of the system which he was in no way interested. He did not want to go for the birthday party either, wanted to continue playing. As usual after this incident, he became pretty cranky and he was not interested in anything. Bharathi got him some dresses, which he never liked. He said he will wear a dress of his choice. When Bharathi made him wear his Birthday shirt, he started complaining that it has “pitchy”. He does not like the label inside the shirt and he gets irritated with it. He says it tickles him and he is not comfortable. As the fatwa goes, he had to be ready with something, probably both mom and son negotiated something which was agreeable to both of them and finally, we left for the City Centre Hotel Venue at 6:30pm for the Birthday Party.
The place was decorated with balloons and few color papers and the hall was reserved for us. Bharathi’s friends started coming and after few minutes our chote nawaab was getting restless to cut the cake. For information, there were 2 cakes one small chocolate and another Scooby Dooby cake. He said that he was hungry and he wanted to cut the cake where there were around 3-4 families. After cutting this he ate a small piece and then wanted to cut another one immediately. By this time others also came in and we got another cake out. He insisted that that Scooby’s face is not cut and blew the Scooby cake candles out. There were around 7-8 kids and they all started playing, running and breaking all the balloons. He had good fun and as usual our little one had gone “Thaak” and he was sweating badly.
The food was excellent; all of them liked it very much. Needless to mention that we had been there for a dinner to validate the taste we were looking at. It was an Indian menu, with Welcome drinks, starters with Paneer Pakora and Vegetable Cutlet, Alu Gobi, Mashroom Mattar Dingri, Authentic Punjabi Dal Tadka, Roomali Roti type chappati, Veg Pulao, Gajar Ka Halwa, Chocolate and Butter Scotch Ice cream. This was accompanied by Aam and Khajur ka chutney, other type of chutneys, achaar, raita, green salads, pappad. The food was real good. As I am writing this mail around 6:50 am on my way to London office, my mouth has already become watery narrating this. Children were just not bothered about anything and there were just running around, playing, tossing the balloons in air, catching it and all sorts of masti was going on. Yes, we did miss our Event Manager, DJ, who entertained us pretty well last year, but this Bday was a different type of fun. He got plenty of gifts and we observed that he too has become pakkie types, opening the gifts immediately, when anyone gives it to him being restless till he has played with it. We went home around midnight and he wanted to open all the gifts, which anyway he did and took a photograph with it.
The next day ie 4th, I got most of the decorative materials and started decorating the house for his Birthday. It’s better late by a day than not doing it. Bharathi had invited few people (Gurdeep and family, our next door folks) and some friends for South Indian dinner. Both Akshay’s room and front room was decorated for the extended birthday weekend.
Our next door folks are Britishers from Pakistani origin. Uncle is an lecturer in a college and aunty is Accounting professional having 2 kids, one 12 year old girl Anum and 6 yr old Harris. Harris is a frequent visitor to our place and both of them spend lot of time together. Well, don’t be so excited, he still does not like sharing. He kept on telling haris, not to touch his gifts etc. etc. However, Haris will pick up something else from the room and start playing there. Sometimes both of them play on their own in separate rooms. This is strange. Some days they are pretty friendly. Mostly it is Akshay who is a plays the Dennis role.
We were busy on both on 3rd and 4th with his Birthday, but somehow I was feeling something missing as I did not get any special gift for him. By the late evening on 4th, I decided to give him another memorable day. We went to York , a short drive from Leeds . We had good fun driving there. It was so hot that Akshay threw his shirt off and he was wearing his sun glasses, playing with his car driving kit, reading books with the sun roof open, with loud background Hindi music. We reached Royal Air Force Museum. It was another memorable day for both father and son; which you guy probably would not understand. We had feast for our eyes. Akshay was running around like mad kicking tyres of the real fighter planes, looking at them touching them, feeling it, hugging it. There were many types of fighter aircrafts displayed there. He also went on to play at the Trainer’s cockpit of a Flying Training School . He sat on an actual cockpit of an old fighter plane which was dismantled from the aircraft, now, only used for training purpose. He said some stories there and spent a lot of time. Later we moved on and went towards Victor an aircraft which also served during Gulf War. There was some maintenance work being carried out on the plane. Akshay approached the Aircraft maintenance engineers and asked them if he could see the cockpit. The guys though for a while and said yeah go ahead. It was a huge aircraft and there was one vertical ladder placed for the crew to board in the aircraft. It was around 10-12 feet high. Akshay was climbing on it and I took this opportunity as if to hold him sneaked in the aircraft. Akshay sat in the cockpit. His face glowed with joy. He was watching all the controls, levels, Throtles and the electronic and electrical panels. He could see outside from the fighter pilot’s seat from the cockpit. It was a real treat for me as well. I was trying to take some pictures, but Akshay was no way interested in posing for me. He was just going with the flow enjoying every bit of the cockpit. For a moment I thought he might just start to kiss the panels, but he was still composed. He asked few questions to those maintenance engineers, as if he understood everything those guys mentioned. It was really good. I can never imagine a common civilian like me can also enjoy such a privilege.
Then, we went to a restaurant where there were about 8-10 aircraft models hung from the ceiling. After our lunch we moved out to a souvenir shop and Akshay got himself a model plane which he can shoot with a gun and it will fly and an F16A fighter plane poster for his room.
We returned back after a full day of enjoyment which marked the completion of a long 3day birthday weekend. I am sure he will cherish the York visit for a long time.
If anyone of you is interested, you can see the Birthday Photos, Akshay’s rendezvous with fighter planes picture and some good video’s (latest) in our site www.geocities.com/bkay_jsr
Have fun!
Cheers!
Bkay
