Foregoing a formal party to bring in her birthday on November 1, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan instead chose to spend a quiet evening chatting with her college friends over dinner.

Says a source close to the Bachchan family, `Lately Aishwarya barely has time for family, let alone friends. Her husband Abhishek, in-laws and her parents complain she is so much on the move with her baby Aaraadhya that there is no time for the family to catch up with the super-itinerant mother-daughter pair. Aishwarya is so hands-on a mother that she takes Aaraadhya everywhere for her professional engagements.`

Given her choc-a-bloc schedule chances of meeting up with friends are pale. The actress invited some of her close college friends for dinner on her birthday.

Says the source, `It was a very intimate gathering .Aishwarya wanted to catch up with her really close friends from college.They are married and have busy lives of their own. She was meeting them after years.Aishwarya preferred to do this long-pending rendezvous with her college friends on her birthday.`

The big birthday bash cum Diwali celebrations was on Sunday night when the Bachchans threw open the doors of their residence Jalsa to anyone from the film fraternity who cared to visit.