How many birthdays do you have? I have two!

I come from a small town - Morigaon. I went to government school and studied in Assamese medium till class-X. There was no play-school and pre-school those days in Morigaon and I went to class-I directly at the age of 5 year and half. There was no convent or any other English medium school there. Students from poor families to upper and lower middle class families in and around that town came to study in that school.

Usually kids of some poor people from villages start school late. Then some students fail in annual exams. So students of various age groups study in a same class.

Then at our time there was no birth-certificate in Assam. The class-X certificate from school-board was considered as the birth certificate.

So when we filled up the forms for class-X exams, our teachers told us not to fill the birth-day column. I didn’t understand its implication at that time. Later I found out that the teachers normalized some dates for all students! Our class X exams took place in the month of March. So all students' birthdays were distributed from about first week of Feb to first week of March.  That’s the story of I having two birthdays. The real one is in August and the official one is February.

Another consequence of these two birthday phenomenon: people used to retire from government services in the month of February and March.  My father retired in the month of February. My mother too will retire in the month of February. So is my uncle.


Things have changed a lot now. My native town Morigaon has changed since then. Birth certificates are compulsory in India now. So I guess people won't have the luxury of celebrating birthday two times in a year nowadays. :-)

I get two sets birthday wishes every year. From all my official contacts, I receive birthday wishes in February. Again in the month of August, I get birthday wishes from personal contacts. Well, it's not bad to receive people's good wishes twice in a year. :-)