Conversations with Myself

Oh yes, finally I decided to document some of these. That too in the morning. The mainframe link seems to be down and the connectivity is slow. So nothing else to do.
I was wondering why I don't like to make my birthday public except to a few people who are close to me. The origin of this practice goes back in time, so back that its origins are lost in the mists of time. Lets pierce the mists with Myself.
Myself studied in a small Convent school in a small town in a small state in the eastern part of the country. We had this assembly thing every morning where all classes used to stand in queues and we used to say the prayer before class (there was one after class too, and not to mention wishing the teachers as they came and went in a sing song voice), sing the National Anthem (one of the few good things we did) and take the pledge (India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters (and we are all incestuous) .. so it went).
Like every school, we had our own traditions and customs. Like the birthday custom. Birthday boys and girls used to be special. They could shed their school uniforms for a day and come in "colour dress". During the assembly they used to come up on stage and everyone would break into the customised Happy Birthday song. Then he/she would offer chocolates to the principal. Well, that's not all. The birthday boy/girl would, during the day, not only distribute chocolates among his/her classmates, but also go round all the classes in the school and offer chocolates to all the teachers.
Myself went through this ritual once, don't exactly remember when, but it was sometime in the late 80's. And found it very embarrassing and to add to it, Myself had this terrible stage fright. How Myself got it is a different story in itself and will be the topic of another post. The ritual since then has been toned down and I remember that the "stage show" was done away with. But somehow the earlier memories remained with me and I avoided letting people know about my birthday lest I again had to be paraded on stage.
These memories have come to haunt me once again. In my office I have another of those rituals, just like every other office. The birthday man/woman is special. He/she has to inform everyone through a mail that he/she has got some sweets on account of his/her birthday and that they are requested to come and have them. And then the wishers start pouring in.