Last year, on my birthday, there was no cake. Work had swallowed both of us. I didn’t ask for one, and the kid inside me sulked quietly, waiting for a cake to cut and a song to clap along to.
This year I couldn’t take that risk.
Somewhere along the way I realized what adulthood does. We grow up and become the ones buying surprise gifts for friends and family, doing the small things that make others happy. But when it comes to our own special day, adulthood quietly destroys the child. So I decided to act from my end. If nobody was going to plan a surprise for me, I would plan it myself.
The timing was right for another reason too. This year had been tiresome: continuous work, constant pressure. My mind was asking for a break. Not whispering. Loud and clear. I needed a break.
On 4th October I would turn 35. Thirty-five, and I could not point to any signature I had left on this world. Life had felt like chasing a mirage. I ran, I reached, and there was nothing there. Exactly ten years ago I had almost ten close friends. Now I stood at a place where attachments scared me more than loneliness did. I know I am a blessed man; the universe has been kinder to me than I deserve. But it leaves me with a pinch of grief, maybe to keep me humble. And somewhere in all of it, I was missing me.
So what was my method to get back to me? How do I forget the phone, the endless scrolling, the unmonitored Instagram, the thoughts that run from AI to existential crisis without stopping for breath? The answer I found was driving. Driving is my zen. My meditation. I love it. More than that, I am in love with it.
That settled it, and the plan wasn’t complicated. Our closest friends, Nischith and Poojitha, live in Stockholm with their baby princess, Aavya. Our Stockholm edition of the Mookambika gang had been talking about a trip together for a long time. The time had come. We would drive from Helsingborg to Stockholm, spend a day at their home, and then go up to an Airbnb in Dalarna.
To be very honest, I had made up my mind to expect only surprises. I told them clearly: please plan everything, including my birthday cake. I want to experience everything as a surprise. And then I went to the supermarket and bought the birthday cake myself.
Everything felt like make-believe. I was planning my own surprises and pretending to be surprised by them. The only question that mattered was: am I enjoying the moments? In a way, yes, I was. I was enjoying the surprises I had planned for myself.
The Night Drive
The plan was to leave around 4pm: log out a bit early, drive for six hours, and be at their door by ten. I don’t know how these things happen, but that turned out to be the busiest day for both of us. For me, an entire application went down in quality. For my wife, Bhavya, some other crazy product-specialist drama. We thought of switching the plan. But the freedom of travel gave us the energy, and we finally started around 8pm.
I am not a fan of night drives, but the situation forced it. And that night we saw the most beautiful moon I have seen in over a decade, in its perfect half. It came along with us for some time. Then, like many other close people of mine, it found me boring and went off in another direction. But that half moon will stay with me for a long time.
We stopped in between for snacks and dinner, and reached their apartment around 2am. Our kind hosts had sent us the door code, so we let ourselves in and slept. Next morning, they welcomed us with bed coffee.
Aavya had started talking in her own way. It is lovely to watch a toddler trying to communicate. She just smiled at me, and we were friends.
Nischith had brought a baby seat for our car, a quality one. But I am someone who knows my skills and limitations very well. All I told him was that the lady I married is good at fixing things and mechanics, whereas I am still struggling with clockwise and anticlockwise. So let’s call her to do the honours. With the help of YouTube, she fixed it. In that same time span, I liked an enormous number of Instagram reels.
Into Dalarna
From Stockholm it was a three-hour drive to Tällberg, where our Airbnb was. We talked about a lot of things and stopped a few times for one reason or another. Aavya was extremely gentle the whole way, enjoying the drive without much noise. Whenever she cried, Poojitha played her a Kannada lullaby. It was so soothing that I now listen to it myself, for a better sleep.
After the Oslo highway, it was mostly country roads. At night, every road through the countryside took the shape of a different animal. We had promised to reach by ten; we were late by an hour and a half. The kind Airbnb owner understood, and sent us the details of where he had kept the key.
The Red House
I woke up a bit late. That was the one thing we made sure of on this trip: no planned timings. No fixed timelines. We were there to talk, laugh, and roam at our own pace. So there was no pressure to wake up early.
The Airbnb was a typical red Dalarna house, two floors, and the owner lived nearby. I was sleeping on the top floor and woke to voices downstairs: the owner talking with the others. He was a man in his mid-eighties, healthy, full of charm and enthusiasm. He had come to ask how we felt about the house. Then I understood he wasn’t running it for money. He was running it for satisfaction, to feel the love and joy of the people who stay. A man of purpose.
He asked us to write our feedback in the book kept in the right-hand corner. I went through it. People from many parts of the world had written about their love for the home. It was lovely to read.
Meanwhile, brunch had to be made. One person had to take care of the kid while the others took the kitchen. I got babysitting. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spent time with a toddler; I am not even sure I ever had. But Aavya was smart. She knew how to take care of me, so it made things easy for me. For the next hour, she looked after me well. She wanted to show me around, but she needed a hand to hold. So I became her hand, and she gave me the full tour.
The Woods and the Lake
In a few hours everybody was ready, and we walked towards the woods. The woods, the lake, the red houses, all in the Scandinavian model. All my lost senses came back. I started living the moment.
To register that I was in the moment, a northern Swedish mosquito bit me. It didn’t bite any of my friends. But it didnt stop me from enjoying the moment. I dive deep into the woods.
So I went back to my childhood. I invoked the child inside me. I walked through the woods feeling the wind, the green, the aroma of the flowers. And when we reached the lake, that moment was all I remember. I lived it. We stayed there a long while and clicked a lot of photos and videos.
On the way back we spoke only about those moments. When we reached the house, the owner was working on his farm. He looked up and said, “Hej!” Then I realized that he is 80 years young, and I am 35 years old.
Goat Cheese and Autumn
We decided to take a quick, lazy drive around the village, and walk to any attractions nearby. The brunch wasn’t enough, but it was already half past two, and most restaurants had stopped serving lunch. After a few rounds of enquiries we found a beautiful restaurant serving local food. I believe food is also part of travel: anything authentic the restaurant suggests has to be tasted. I did. Mind and bowel were happy.
The funniest moment, one I will carry for the next few years: all of us were hungry, and as Indians we need to see real food on the plate. Nischith and Poojitha ordered a dish with goat cheese, expecting goat meat. Instead they had to be satisfied with some unknown leaves.
What else I took from that restaurant: how gentle the people around us were, how classy the nature, and the beauty of calmness in autumn.
Then came the drive through the autumn roads. The trees of the woods had changed their colours to red. The leaves know they are going to fall any moment, yet they hold on for one last hug, and nature is ready to absorb the change. I feel it as the last dance of those leaves. Maybe that’s why autumn is called the season of love. We know it is the end, but still it goes and goes. A beautiful embrace of belonging and leaving.
I drove a lot that day. I didn’t think much. My eyes were off the screen, and without any blocker, I embraced the nature.
We went to a few more places. Aavya was spontaneous. She waved at everyone, smiled at everyone, and judged no one. Maybe that was what told me to rethink myself.
Geocaching
One thing I love most about Bhavya: she is a sport. An intelligent, amazing woman who finds games no one has ever heard of, and who has more words in her pocket than any of us. She doesn’t announce any of it. She just quietly finds the next thing. And this time she came up with a new game called geocaching.
Poojitha, ever charming and full of life, is another sport, always on for any adventure. Nischith, the silent observer, might be the only mature and sensible one in the group, a man whose heart sits on the left, in more ways than one. And then there’s me: a man full of confusion and stupidity, but with a brave heart and a can-do mindset. Together with Bhavya, and under the able leadership of Aavya, we formed the team and installed the app.
It wasn’t just fun. It turned out to be one of the best moments of the trip. We followed the map, drove down a mud road, and reached an abandoned, lonely lake. There, in an old rusty post box, we found the notes and added our names. The teamwork, the urge to find something, the beauty, the adventure: none of us had done anything like it before.
I wanted to respect my stupidity, because when my intelligence said it was wrong, my stupidity gave us moments.
We reached back home. There wasn’t much left to do, and we slept.
Thirty-Five
Then it was time to celebrate my birthday. The cake cutting. I had turned 35.
That morning I saw a white hair on my chest. It scared me. Am I getting old? Somewhere, I am scared of getting old. But if I am truly living in the moment, is it something to be scared of? I am starting this day with the experience of 35 years, and I am in love with this version of me. Instead of being fearful, I have to be grateful.
What is early, and what is late? If I compare myself with others, I may be a loser or a winner. But nobody raced with me through this journey. It was my own journey. I am living in my own rhythm; let me go with it.
Am I relevant? Maybe not, and being irrelevant is okay. I love to disappear from the rat race and the proving. My doors are open, but I do not want to invite anyone. I am not a zen master or an anarchist. I am not here to prove anything or earn anything. I am here to live. Where I struggle is knowing how. Life is beautiful for those who know how to live, and I am learning. When I live with consciousness and integrity, doors will open for me. Let my guru find me.
I was lost somewhere in these thoughts when the call came to cut the cake. It woke me up. But it wasn’t the cake I had bought myself at the supermarket. It was another one, prepared by my dear ones. That was the surprise moment. The one I hadn’t planned. The one that had been planned for me.
All this while, I had been arranging my own surprises and pretending to be surprised. And while I was busy doing that, they had quietly been doing it for me. I stood there for a moment, a 35-year-old man in front of a cake he never saw coming, and the kid inside me woke up and smiled. When the world is kinder than you expected, don’t question it. Just bow to it.
Have you ever noticed? The birthday song is a nursery rhyme. Whoever sings it sings like a kid. We have to celebrate it. Otherwise we forget the kids inside us and become mere adults who just earn money, mates, and hates.
Back on Track
Then we were ready to go back. We visited a few places on the way: the Falun Mine, and then Öster Silvberg, an old silver mine whose pit has filled with turquoise-blue water. Out of all the beautiful scenes and interactions of that trip, the one thing I carried home was a comment Nischith made about my driving:
“Arun makes a lot of wrong turns from the map. He tells everyone he made a mistake, but he makes sure he doesn’t get scared of it. He just takes the next right track and gets back on track.”
That was my zen moment. I may make my mistakes, but there is a right path. Admit it, take the next turn, and get back on track.
On the drive home, the views felt clearer. The woods smiled at me. Even the leaves seemed to know something I was only beginning to learn: they know they will fall, but they don’t spend their days worrying about it. They enjoy every stage, from bud to light green to green to red. Maybe thirty-five is just another colour.
Sometimes the wheels and the steering teach life’s lessons better than anyone.
