A star birthday (no, that's not Shahrukh's birthday!) ...

I'm off to the temple here in Livermore for a visit. It's my 'star' birthday if you know that means. The americans have no clue of course, but I've started noticing that even my indian friends are kind of vague about the whole thing. Has the whole star/local calendar birthday concept fallen out of vogue? We still celebrate festivals based on the tamil calendar - festivals like Deepavali, Tamil New Year, Pongal etc. My cousin stayed over at my parents' last night and my mother tells me she had to explain to him what a 'star' birthday is! I found myself in the same position with my indian friends at work. I don't think App's family pays much heed to the tamil birthday either, so is it just my family?

Tamil birthdays were never as 'special' as the so called 'real' birthdays. Kids have always celebrated their birthdays based on the English (what I call it anyway) calendar. However, my family has always celebrated the tamil calendar birthday too, to a lesser extent for sure - no new clothes or birthday cake or sweets for everyone but I get wished and we pray / go to the temple. Most times, my mother would make some small sweet to appease my sweet tooth too! The day is called the star birthday because it falls on the day when your star (the star that was observed on the day you were born) is observed in the current month. It occurs more or less around the same period as the English birthday, differing by days or weeks. In my case this year, it falls 18 days after Dec 1st which is the furthest I remember it being. I'll stop my pointless rambling here but I just felt like writing a bit to say that I think a star birthday adds another special day to one's year and I would definitely want my kids to have the same affinity I have for this 'insignificant' day :)