India -- where you can have your cake... and WEAR it, too!

I will never visit India on my birthday -- not after today. Today the staff invited me to come for the presentation of the monthly birthday cakes… Most offices/teams do something similar – end of month mini-celebrations to commemorate the birthdays of various team members… definitely NOT the place I was expecting a surprise. Lovely cakes. Smiling faces. And then the “event coordinator” (we always know our own kind!) cuts a corner off the cake and approaches the birthday boy. What I thought was going to be a sweet offering to him of his birthday cake completely took me by surprise: she smashed it all over his face! And then the melee began – all three birthday boys had their cakes smeared all over their faces by their teammates! Apparently this was no surprise – it’s LOCAL CUSTOM! Some tried to turn away, but clearly all knew this was part of the deal. It’s painful enough to add another year – but I think these guys experienced some physical pain. I know the moisturizing properties of a smeared-in blueberry cheesecake must be good for the skin, but these guys had to scrub to get that stuff off their faces! Just another day of living, learning, and loving… India.