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Two months back I celebrated my first birthday. Do you this was the second biggest party of my whole life. We celebrated the first one in Kolkata. It was the day I got to taste of rice for the very first time and along with that a lot more thing that made very little sense to me. Many curries including Fish and also sweets, which could hardly fit within a 10” plate... all I could think of at that moment was... "ore baba re" (OMG)! They (ora) like to call it my annaprashon. You know, I was very sad this time as we do not have my relatives here in Dubai and I missed them all very dearly. I thought I will not write about this party at all as I missed the family so much. But now that I have spent a good one month time in Kolkata with all of them, I feel much better. This time most of the uncles and aunts we know here in Dubai have also gone out for their summer vacation and there were suggestions that we postpone the birthday party. But tell me how can we postpone my first birthday party.... yes the first birthday! Actually at the end we did have quite a few guests and I made many friends though they appeared to be a little elder than me. I had great fun running after them and shouting aloud... yes shouting with all my strength.... you see, I still have to learn how to talk like you guys! It was sad though that Ma did not allow me to go around the pool as it was too dangerous.
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I actually thought it would be somewhat similar to the annoprashon party. at one was in Calcutta Rowing Club and believe me, it was a great party. I almost felt like a queen, that evening. We actually sent out invitation cards well in advance all those cards created especially for me. I had my grandparents, uncles, aunts and so many other guests.
At the annoprashon earlier in the day it was great fun too. You know for we Bengalees it is a very auspicious occasion. This is the day we worship our family Guru and are introduced to the real world of all the perceivable senses. Everyone was ready with their cameras when Pishimoni (aunt, father's sister) got a plate with lots of goodies, as I was sitting on my mama's (mother's brother) lap and I was supposed to select whatever I liked. There were money, jewelry, cosmetics, pen, pencil and a book. Can you imagine that I selected the book from all those things? Everyone was very excited ... I did not quite understand why! It was actually a book on finance from kaka (father's younger brother). After that all the elders started to shower me with all sorts of ornaments.... I wish I had many of such occasions! But it only comes once in a lifetime.But all in all both my parties had been great fun. ... A lot of fun!