I landed back from Vietnam in the middle of July to spend some time with my mom. With my birthday on 3rd August just around the corner, I hadn’t planned anything at all..
Once you become an adult, birthdays lose their charm. They become just another day in life. You receive a few phone calls, reply to birthday wishes, go to work, and before you know it, the day is over. The only thing that changes is the number in your age column.
But when you have dear friends like Ravi, they never let you spend your special day alone.
My birthday in 2025 was one such example.
Ravi is one of my oldest friends. We first met when we were around ten years old after he returned to Gwalior from Sainik School in Jhunjhunu. More than two decades later, he remains one of the very few people I can trust blindly.
Like every friendship, ours has seen its share of arguments, disagreements, and moments of silence. We have fought, annoyed each other, and sometimes even stopped talking for a while. But those moments have always remained between us. We both understand that real friendships survive their ups and downs.
A few days after I returned from Vietnam, Ravi casually asked,
Dubai chalega kya?” Ravi asked with a grin
I didn’t think much of it. I assumed he either had some work there or simply wanted to visit Archit.
I met Archit through Ravi, and over the years he has become like a younger brother to us.. He is someone we all genuinely care about.
Only later did I realize that true friends think about you when you stop thinking about yourself.
They had quietly planned a small birthday trip for me.
The plan was simple. Ravi and I would fly to Dubai, while Archit and Piyush, who both work there, would join us.
As always, our plans changed.
Instead of flying from Delhi, we booked one of the newly introduced Air India Express flights from Indore to Sharjah.
We landed in Sharjah at around one in the morning on 3rd August. It was already my birthday.
Archit, along with one of his friends, was waiting to pick us up from the airport.
The fun begins.
Not yet.
The hotel we had booked had been automatically cancelled because we were in the air and couldn’t be reached to confirm our arrival. Once midnight passed, the booking was gone.
Panicked?
Not really.
Looking back, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
The four of us drove around the streets of Sharjah and Dubai in the middle of the night, calling different hotels until we finally found one with available rooms.
By the time we checked in, it was almost five in the morning.
We slept.
When we woke up around three in the afternoon, the real celebration finally began.
We spent the day wandering around the city, visited a hookah lounge, laughed over endless conversations, and later in the evening explored a few clubs together.
Piyush joined us after finishing work. We eventually settled into an Italian bar, where we enjoyed a few drinks, talked for hours, and simply enjoyed being together.
Having Ravi, Archit, and Piyush with me on my birthday made the day far more special than any grand celebration ever could.
There is nothing extraordinary in this article.
No breathtaking landscapes.
No once-in-a-lifetime adventure.
No dramatic life lesson.
But I felt deeply grateful that Ravi, Archit, and Piyush took time out of their busy lives to celebrate my birthday thousands of kilometres away from home.
This is not a 3,000-word memoir like many of my other stories.
It is simply a small tribute to three friends who made my birthday truly special in a foreign land.
I have never been particularly good at expressing my emotions, especially to my friends. Perhaps many of us grow up believing that gratitude does not need to be spoken aloud.
But I wanted to use this platform to say something I probably do not say often enough.
Thank you, Guys.
I hope life gives us many more trips, many more conversations, and many more birthdays together.