Your ordinariness makes you fear you may be forgotten. And so, you swing between wondering who among your relatives and friends will remember to wish you on your birthday, and posing you wouldn’t be bothered if none did. In your heart, though, you know not getting even a single call would hurt you deeply, for birthday greetings, since childhood, symbolise your importance in the small world you inhabit. You have rationally negated the logic of equating importance with worthiness and worthiness with love, but the child in you still dreads not being remembered on your birthday.

Days before every September 17, for a decade now, you slip into envying Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as you pore over media reports on nationwide plans to celebrate his birthday. You think he must have no fear of being forgotten on his birthday, not even by his rivals, who, even though they deride him, make it a point to wish him every year.