Dressed in a bright pink lace frock, five-year- old Saimara Shetty waits eagerly for her ‘guests’ in a plush party hall of a fivestar hotel. The decoration of the hall does not suggest that it is a child’s birthday party. Saimara’s parents have spent a fortune to make their child happy.
Unlike the olden days when birthdays meant a small get together at home, with homemade goodies, birthday parties have taken the commercial route.
“The money spent on a child’s birthday goes up to Rs 10 lakh these days. Most of these parties are theme-based and are held in five star hotels,” said Ashwini Suresh who runs an event company in J P Nagar.
Ashwini added that these birthday parties have now become more of an adult affair than for children.
“All the games, cake, food, etc. are for the parents and their friends. Each plate costs around Rs 1,300 and most of the parties have around 100 guests, so you can do the maths,” he said.
Though the rich enjoy their extravagant affair, it is the middle class which suffers. For Anisha Sharma, a mother of two and a resident of Koramangala, such birthday concepts have literally become a menace.
“I cannot afford these expensive parties on my salary. This year my daughter attended one of these highend parties of her classmate and then got after my life to arrange the same for her. Birthday parties have become more of a status symbol now,” she said.
A Domlur-based businessman, Prashant Reddy keeps his child’s birthday parties a simple affair.
“Though I can afford to have a big expensive party, we make sure that birthdays are celebrated at home. I don’t want to spoil my children. If one child has an expensive party, all children will want the same. We don’t want to spoil our children,” he said.
Nirmal Singh Sandhu, an air cargo dealer from Whitefield begs to differ.
“I have two teenage kids. My son is a football player, so we had a football match for his birthday where all his friends participated. As return gifts, we got footballs,” he said.
Sandhu added that maybe 10 years back they celebrated their child’s birthday in five star hotels but now children have only become practical and don’t want to spend so much money.