How to make a birthday fake

Itrsquos your birthday soon Herersquos a choice would you rather receive a handful of heartfelt wishes from a few dozen cherished friends or a thousand or so birthday messages from casual acquaintances friends of friends and strangers from all over the worldIn recent years a depressing new trend has emerged A dear friend or relative with nothing but the best intentions will go online to crowdsource birthday greetings for you from all and sundry Itrsquos meant to be a surprise for you On the special day you will be deluged by wishes from thousands of people most of whom might not recognise you in a transit loungeSomdashwhich would you preferIn 2019 when I received only 21 wishes on Facebook I went spiralling into deep introspection utterly crushed I had received 219 wishes the previous yearWisdom dawned a day latermdashof the 219 wellwishers 93 had been people I would have passed by on the street Most of the others were Facebook friends of Facebook friends responding mindlessly toautomatic remindersAs for the handful of people who did and do wish memdashthey are mostly not social media users Like normal human beings those who truly love you and care for you are liable to forget your birthday and wish you full of apologies a few days later Some will pick up the phone and talkI completely understand the panic that can grip a son or daughter or husband or wife at the thought that their spouse or parent might have a birthday no one noticesIn a different era a warm affectionate celebration with family and friends might have done just fine But in todayrsquos world you are judged by the size of your following Spectacle audience and numbers matter Fortunately each of those can be riggedMeet my friend Menaka Roy not her real name in Kolkata widow mother and grandmother who turned 75 two years ago Her devoted son planning a birthday surprise for her posted a widely shared Facebook and WhatsApp invitation to just about anyone who happened to read it Please send a birthday wish to my dear mother on her 75th birthday It will make her very happyAbout 3800 wishes came in which the son compiled into an endless video and subjected the poor lady to for the best part of an hourldquoWho are all these peoplerdquo she asked me later flummoxed ldquoWhy are they all wishing merdquoCrowdsourcing birthday wishes went to a new level for a reader who wrote to me last month He and several hundred others received a link to a Google Forms questionnaire from a dear friend planning a surprise for her husbandrsquos 60th birthday The form clinically guided wellwishers through a stepbystep process for mining their memories finding nostalgia capturing the moments succinctly and evensuggesting a titleI pointed out that many people donrsquot have the time or even with good intentions forget Questionnaires are efficientldquoI felt manipulatedrdquo he told me ldquoI donrsquot need to be guided on how to remember a friend on a birthdayrdquoWhat if the birthday child has a disability and few friends Colin a nineyearold boy with special needs living near Kalamazoo Michigan turned 11 on March 9 2014 He did not want a birthday party for the most heartbreaking reason he could not think of anyone to inviteHis devoted mother Jennifer did what many might do she decided to prove to Colin that not only did he have many many more lsquofriendsrsquo than he had imagined but that they all remembered his birthdaymdasheven if she had to rig the whole thingJennifer set up a Facebook page called lsquoMama Jennifer and Friendsrsquo inviting anyone and everyone to send birthday wishes to Colin ldquoPlease join me in making my very original son feel special on this dayrdquo she said in her appealA month before his birthday Colin had received 40000 likes Jennifer set up a PO Box number to receive the birthday cards that many wanted to send I checked the page minutes agomdashitrsquos still alive and thrumming with 15 million likes and 12 million followersColin has been lovebombed for nine years by people he has never metI asked one of my students a child with Aspergerrsquos syndrome how he would have liked such a torrent of wishes ldquoPeople like me are not very socialrdquo he said ldquoIrsquod have felt kinda exposed and embarrassed that so many people were being told about merdquoMe I like to keep my birthdays quiet However because I like surprising people I have sometimes gone to great lengths to engineer birthday moments for unsuspecting strangers Such as in 2019 a middleaged colleague living alone in the Philippines during the pandemicThis year as I turned 71 three of my birthday victims conspired to show up at my door armed with cakes balloons and smilesThree they say is a crowd Thatrsquos exactly the kind of crowdsourcing I likeYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper