This is not a cleverly googled piece on the evolution of
Christmas trees, cards and Santa Claus. It is about how my own Christmases have
evolved over the past 62 years of my existence. I am telling it as it was.
My
childhood in Kanpur was a privileged one, as was Christmas then. At the tender
age of 7 I was bundled off to an elite boarding school in the hills. After 9
months of jail we headed home in the first week of December for a three-month
long winter vacation. In those days, unlike today, the schools in the plains
also closed at about the same time, so we had enough time to “prepare” for
Christmas.
Psychologists
tell us that a child experiences love through receiving; and that was my
childhood experience of Christmas, valid in itself. Other than the gifts, the
enduring memory is of my mother and grandmother’s culinary skills, and the
“collaboration” of my father together with us 4 kids.
My
mother was a master chef, long before the term became au courant. Not just plum
cake and plum pudding burnt with brandy; there were Turkish delights, lemon
tarts, meringues, macaroons et al. Grandmother made the traditional Goan sweets
like bebinca, dodol and chonechi dose. Long before the advent of glitzy malls,
we had caviar, anchovy, pate de foie gras, Gorgonzola cheese and Firpos
chocolates for Christmas. Dad’s contribution (he was 27 years older than my
mother) was to sit in the sun with us kids pretending to clean the raisins and
nuts for the cake, with a large quantity mysteriously disappearing enroute!
Psychologists
further tell us that youth experience love through searching. For me it took
the form of shikar. We had to have a graylag goose (a winter migrant from
Siberia) for Christmas lunch. My uncle would also drive down in his Chevrolet
V8 Fleetmaster to a remote village hundreds of miles away to get turkeys. I
accompanied him one year. There were about a dozen turkeys in a basket on the
carrier. When we stopped at a roadside tea stall some of the bemused villagers,
who had never seen a turkey before, wondered where we were taking so many
vultures! In those days shikar also meant getting bluebull meat for making
hunter, a form of salt meat. There would also be a hind leg of pork soaked in
beer for a month and pierced with cloves, to make succulent ham.
Christmas
day was always hectic, with a constant stream of visitors. We seldom got to eat
lunch, and still don’t. As I grew older I discovered that my mother also made
an exotic array of wines and liqueurs. Sherry was the preferred wine, while
Crème de Menthe, Green Chartreuse and Drambui were the choice of liqueurs.
Ironically, Dad was a teetotaler.
As
a teenager I gradually became aware that there was more to Christmas than
feasting. From the bake I evolved to the Babe in Bethlehem with the eternal
message “Peace to men of goodwill”. That is when I started making the crib, an
elaborate affair with earth, grass and running water, depicting the birth of
Jesus. It would take three days to construct. I took great pride in that crib,
exhibiting it to all our visitors.
Life
changed dramatically after my father died. I was still a teenager. A year later
I moved to Mumbai, as I had fallen in love with a girl, and consequently fallen
out with my mother. My first salary in Mumbai, in the shadow of the Bangladesh
war, was a princely Rs 100/-. With that I bought gifts for others. I was
discovering that as an adult love meant not just receiving or searching, but
now it was sharing. The next Christmas my mother invited me home. That was
1972. I rode my Bullet 350 cc from Mumbai to Kanpur (1300 kms) in the bitter
cold. Back then there were no mobiles, GPS systems, or even petrol pumps. It
was both risky and adventurous, as my life then was. When I reached home after
two days of hard riding I was so stiff with the cold that it took me 24 hours
to straighten up. It was a thrilling ride and a chilling Christmas.
Life
took another dramatic turn 3 years later, when I met Jesus. Till then I had
been “exhibiting” him at Christmas. I was now beginning to experience him. I
left home again to live for 7 years in a Christian ashram in a village outside
Bareilly. The ashram had no electricity; it had mud walls and floors, asbestos
sheet roofing, and wire meshing instead of windows. Winter was bitterly cold,
but Christmas there set my heart on fire. At midnight we would trudge to the
small chapel holding our kerosene lanterns and huddled in blankets. We
experienced the stark poverty of the Manger, surrounded by straw and cattle,
and the shepherds minding their flocks. Christmas was a real incarnation of the
divine. Together with the local youth I would organize a Christmas tableau in
the neighbouring villages. We had two petromax lanterns for arc lights, and a
durrie for our stage. Under the canopy of the stars, Christmas was truly a
silent night.
Life
then took another turn, as I had to return home to sort out family problems. I
settled in like a domesticated fowl. In 1990 I was elected the National
President of the All India Catholic Union, in which capacity I led a lakh-plus
rally at the Boat Club lawns in Delhi, demanding equal rights for Dalit
Christians. I made a clarion call that if the Govt did not concede our
legitimate demands by Christmas, we would not celebrate it that year. So we had
the Christmas Satyagrah, eschewing all form of celebrations, with the money
thus saved going to the Dalit Christian cause. That Christmas was a fight for
justice.
Two
years later it was the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Till then, our tenants,
some of whom paid as little as Rs 7/- per month by way of rent, always came
together with a basket of fruit to wish us. They were a mix of Hindus and
Muslims. Post Babri, they came separately! The communal divide was complete.
Christmas
kept evolving for me. I now began to feel that the message of peace and harmony
needed to be emphasized. I got a huge star erected, with the central hexagon
painted in the tricolour, with just one word – Peace – written in Hindi, Urdu
and English. One year, seeing the bright lights, a cycling duo from Europe rode
in, mistaking our house for a church, and seeking shelter for the night. They
were treated to a Christmas repast. How could we say to them, “There is no
place in the inn”?
Through
the Kanpur Catholic Association I now began organizing a Christmas Milan, which
was an interfaith prayer for peace, with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs,
Parsis and even Bahais participating. We used the occasion to confer “Shanti
Sewak Samman” awards on citizens who had contributed to society. These Milans
were mutually enriching.
My
saddest Christmas was 3 years ago, when a fictitious criminal case was filed
against me over a property dispute. I had to go underground until I obtained a
stay order from the High Court. I could not even go to church that year, and
had to keep the house locked. That Christmas reminded me of the killing of the
innocents by King Herod, and the subsequent flight into Egypt.
Now
that most of our friends are civic or social activists, our Christmas menu has
also evolved in the changed circumstances. So if you visit us this Christmas
you may be served piping hot chhola bhatura and gajar halwa, as we gather
around a crackling bonfire. There is something about the cold and Christmas;
people are compelled to come closer together to keep warm. As my wife
mischievously says, the only reason she got married was to have a warm bed in
winter! Ever wondered how those poor souls in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate
Christmas in the heat of summer? I pity them!
In
life, as in love, the only thing that is constant is change, or evolution. This
Christmas be a game changer. Do something different. Think out of the box.
Change the parameters. You will have no regrets. Peace be to you and your dear
ones at Christmas and the New Year. PEACE – SHANTI – SHALOM – AMMAN.
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