No date of birth

Posted on by KG

Today, a lot of stuff depends on the birth date. That is one of our identifying factors. What if we don’t have one. What would we do? Will it make any difference at all?

Recently my maid was telling me about her visit to the doctor because she thought she was going through menopause. She was having all those symptoms and her health wasn’t what it used to be. So she wanted to check with a lady doctor and see if there was anything that she need to take care of. When doctor asked her about her age she told her that she had no idea and went ahead with the story. I asked her to rewind a bit. I thought I heard her wrong. But she repeated the same thing to me and says ‘How would I know my date of birth. Those days people didn’t bother registering the births or deaths, did they ?’ So, I asked her how she knew she was going through menopause. Because she doesn’t look any older than 45-50 years. And she is quite healthy with all that house hold work she does and she is fit too. All muscles and no fat at all. I have seen her get sick with cold often but that is all.

That got me thinking. She doesn’t have any records of her birth at all. She has some cooked up dates for the other forms that needs to be filled, like the Aadhar card that has become kind of mandatory over here. She recently had to open a bank account along with her second girl because only then her girl will be given the scholarship money for her studies. I know lot of people change their date of birth to accommodate the kids schooling year. For e.g. if they were born in July – Dec, they would either have a date selected in March so that they can admit the kid that year instead of losing a year. I know lot of people who have done that. I am not sure if they do it anymore what with part of the registration being done at the hospitals. But no idea at all about one’s own date of birth? I just couldn’t imagine it. Can you? She is cool and goes on with her work and life and it hasn’t affected her one teeny tiny bit at all. The only effect it had was on me leaving me bewildered.

Published by KG

10 thoughts on “No date of birth”

  3. Mary’s grandmother came to the US from Lithuania early in the last century. She was an orphan that lived with a family on a farm, but she didn’t know her birthday, and she had no birth certificate. It’s very rare now, but it does happen with older people.

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    1. I wonder how people moved across countries those times without any documentation like the birth certificates. Now, everything thing is dependent on that.

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  4. It seems to be common in certain countries. They do not see the need to register the birth or get an ID until the need to open bank account or apply for passport. I was surprised when I first heard that but they seem pretty cool about it.

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