Sanjay's Birthday

“Are you having a good birthday?” I asked Sanjay, one of the senior boys this afternoon.

“Oh yes!” he responded, his hands a shirt splattered with dry paint. Today was the first day of the week of maintenance work which the newly arrived team from the US was going to help the children with. It didn’t take a very keen observer to see that a day of painting in the hot sunshine with English-speaking foreigners was a blast for all the children, birthday or no.

“Sanjay,” I asked him again, “yesterday you told me that you were 17 years old and are turning 18 today.” I was surprised when he had told me this yesterday because I was sure he was older than that.

“Yes,” he confirmed and looked at me.

I eyed him, never having met a teenager who honestly didn’t know how old they were. “My computer says that you were 19 and today are turning 20. Are you sure you’re only 18?”

“Yes, Didi.” He answered nonchalantly, seemingly unaffected by the news. A short silence, then, “Maybe, Didi.”

From my limited interactions with Sanjay, he seems like an intelligent, but not terribly expressive young man. Did it really matter so little to him to know how old he was? Why should it matter? The question hung in my mind.

Later in the afternoon, Sanjay sat quietly a few spaces away from me. I asked how he was and then, wanting to make sure he understood what I’d told him earlier, I said in clear English, “I think you are older than 18. You are more mature. I think you are 20.” He smiled and nodded in agreement. After sensing no further communication from him, I turned to Rajenti sitting at my side. “How old are you?” I asked her.

“Thirteen,” she said.

“Didi can check for you.” I glanced up at these words from Sanjay. He smiled at me. I was gratified by this small indication that he was actually glad to know how old he really was.  

These children lead such a different life than what I grew up with. No aspect of their living at the Children’s Home is really determined by their age, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that some of them aren’t sure how old they are. But still, knowing your age seems like such a foundational and assumed part of a person’s identity, it was reassuring to me to know that someone as bright and as old as Sanjay couldn’t be that blasé toward finding out that he was a whole 2 years older than he’d thought.