Ratika and Dheeraj Keswani celebrated the first birthday of their daughter Myra today at the new Kondapur Heart Cup Cafe.

But I am not going to tell you what a great place that is and what great arrangements were made…not talk about the music, nor the mood in the place. Let me just say a great time was had by all and the bar was singing right through. And the kid, little Myra…floated through the proceedings…never did she make a fuss, never did she complain. She was an angel. As was her mother, resplendent in a white dress that shouted old world charm.

What I am going to tell you about is the wave…the tsunami of nostalgia that washed down my fatigue, swept away the discomfort of a hot, muggy afternoon…a whoosh that took me back to 1986 when my daughter, my older one, turned one…and we had a party at home.

It’s not as if I am trying to steal the Keswani’s thunder, but I could see other parents reminiscing about their children’s birthdays. A lady with a small child sat down next to me and I could see that birthday parties were nothing new to the child.

So I just sipped on rather well made virgin mojitos and sank into a sea of nostalgia.

I am not going to bore you with photographs that we still have of the occasion…nor am I going to talk about how good it was to meet up with friends like Ramakrishna Shenoy, Vinay Varma, Ankit Bakshi, Kanishka Dasgupta, Mayura, Harika, Anisha, KC…even Harshvardhan Rane and Ratika’s sister who actually remembered the play we had put up last year around the same time.

But I must share with you two mad things that made my daughter’s birthday special…for us at least.

The first thing was so silly that I don’t even know if this is an appropriate platform for me to display such idiocies.

It had become fashionable just then to buy from Bombay, or even get from Abroad, a string of letters that spelt Happy Birthday…and they would be the backdrop.

My wife…or my mother…I can’t remember who…was very keen that we have that decoration.

The next thing on the wish list, simply because my daughter was born on Christmas Eve, was to have a Santa Claus Cake.

Imagine…this is about 30 years ago. The bakeries here were fairly simple…pedestrian even. Custom Designed cakes were not in vogue. And we were very apprehensive about getting anything good in Hyderabad.

Then my wife had a brainwave…we had just spent a long time in Delhi…and had become regulars at Nirula’s. So the demand was for the cake to be made in Delhi by Nirula’s and air lifted from there. It may be easy to do these things today, but back then…it was a huge exercise.

And as Murphy would have it, there was a last minute glitch and it looked like the cake couldn’t be shipped. That’s when my wife’s brother came to the rescue.

He was based in Delhi in a Senior Government position…and he knew that the Governor of AP Ms. Kumudbehn Joshi was flying into Hyderabad that evening. So he got through to her and requested her to carry the cake.

Look at the amazing thing…she graciously agreed. And she carried back a 5 Kilo Santa Claus cake from Nirula’s. The cake reached in time for the party and was a big hit amongst the guests and more importantly the kids just loved it.

Many other things happened that day. But most significant was the realisation that this was the first function I’d host for my children.

I am sure Dheeraj and Ratika may not have realised the importance of this milestone…but I am sure they soon will. They are all heart anyway…

No wonder their one establishment is called Heart Cup and the other is Extreme.