Birthdays come only once in a year and last year I celebrated my birthday the way I wanted to. My parents were gracious - enough to ask me for anything on that day and I asked them to arrange a grand party for my friends.

My mother is my best friend when it comes to inviting friends home. She helped me to make invitation cards and to fill them up with names. She made a list of all the friends I wanted to call and then made a card to send to each of my friends. The contents of each card were different so as to suit the taste of the particular friend to whom it was sent.

Thereafter she took me to the market and bought balloons and streamers, masks and caps, etc to decorate the house with. We ordered the cake and bought wrapping paper along with the return presents. As we reached home we sat down to work. We put up the streamers with tape and hung the balloons all over the walls and on the fans and doors and windows. We arranged the marks and caps in such a way that each friend of mine would pick one of his choices.

Mother was very busy. She spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking for all my friends. The cake arrived in the evening and soon my friends started pouring in. My father arranged some games for them and he became the referee for all our games. He arranged musical chairs, passing the parcel, follow the leader, dumb charades, etc. and all the children enjoyed themselves.

We had our tea after the cake was cut by me. The cake was in the shape of a beautiful house with colourful fencing and big chunks of chocolate. I was drowned in gifts once my friends left and I went to bed with the satisfaction of having enjoyed the best birthday party of my life.