My Two Birth Days!

I have two birthdays. It is nothing miraculous, but just cultural.In fact, a doctor on my hospice team (from South America) and a nurse (from Haiti) also have two birthdays. For a western mind, it may be very hard to understand how one person could have have two birthdays. But it is more common than you think.

When I was growing up in India in the fifties, birthdays were neither mentioned or celebrated. My mom who neither read nor wrote English, followed an Indian Calendar. I never had a birthday party or received a birthday card or a birth day present. My wife thinks I was a bad boy, not true, just cultural. Never heard of Hallmark until I came to the US in 1981!

When I was registered in Elementary School, documents such as birth certificate, social security card,phone bill or utility bill were not required. None of these existed! My dad took me to school, and told the headmaster who my dad knew, that I was five years old and needs to be in school. So, the headmaster wrote my name on a book and told my dad to send me to school the next day, and that was my first day of school! No photos, no videos. We had no camera. As a matter of fact, there are no baby pictures of mine. I was 19 years old when my first picture was taken. No way of knowing what a cute baby I was!!

So, during the first 15 years of my life at home, there was no mention of any birthday. For the next 10 years in the Seminary, my "feast day" was celebrated but not birthday. By the way, feast day honors the Saint for whom a person is named. I was named after "St. Paul" and his feast day is June 29th. I still get sporadic feast day greeting cards from nuns in India, on June 29th.

The first time a serious need for a DOB arose, when I applied for a passport in 1981. In the passport application, I wrote down a date that matched the Indian Calendar my mother followed and that date was September 22! Again, no supporting document was needed for this. So, since 1981, in all official documents, my DOB is September 22nd. But I knew it was not the day I saw the light of day. So, when I went to India in 1986, I did some digging. The place to look is the church where you are baptized. In India, a baptism certificate takes the place of birth certificate for Christians.

I was baptized in my mother's parish church. And I found my baptism certificate in an old dusty ledger, at St.Mary's Church, Muttuchira, and viola, the exact date of my blessed birth, is October 6, 1950! I was baptized seven days later on October 13th. Baby baptism was the norm those days, for fear of going to limbo, should the baby die before being baptized. The pope recently removed limbo from the list of possible places for unbaptized babies!!

So October 6th is the day I celebrate my birth, thanking the Lord for giving me life, although I gracefully accept good wishes and presents starting on September 22nd!