Silent Night

It’s a few hours till Christmas; arguably the second on my all-time favourite festival list. And yet, this Christmas feels strange. For the first time in years, Mumbai has cooled down to take me back to my growing years in Calcutta. Bru Café has launched the Christmas Plum cake. And a lot of bakeries are trying hard to make me forget the taste and nostalgia of Nahoum. But I still am not jolly. And on Christmas, without fail, you need to be jolly.

I probably will miss going to a midnight mass this year. I probably will miss listening to Christmas carols. There are a list of ads I need to see before the day is out and I shut down my laptop. It’s almost six and I should be shutting it down and watch the sun set over Mumbai. Long long ago, it is believed that a star was seen in the sky. I should be searching for that star tonight.

As I sit, I can hear the singing in the mosque nearby celebrating the birth of another prophet. The world always celebrates life; never death. It celebrates in birth; mourns in death and yet between the cycle of life and death we play our small games; day in and day out. Sometimes the futility of it all is striking. A friend recently said, “gain experiences.” Noble thoughts but what are experiences but a display of showmanship when advertised on social media?

The sun is a brilliant hue of orange, the birds are returning home. Somewhere a bard may still be strumming his guitar for a new song. It’s Christmas and I want to pause. And reflect and yes have my plum cake. But those seem futile when your mind keeps humming discordant notes. Is there light somewhere, anywhere?

The Saviour and King, they tell me, was born in a manger.

Why He Exists

2011 was a strange year. Well, every year since 2001 has been strange and it never ceases to amaze me how much the world can conjure up moments and memories that live with you forever. But 2011 was strange because I could sense myself changing; for better or for worse only time can tell.

Exactly 10 years from my first trip outside Calcutta, I made my first trip outside India. I went to Pilani leaving every friend behind and made new friends who will last a lifetime. I learnt the meaning of sojourn that might last lifetimes. I hope Singapore does the same. But the me of 2011 is a different person and I can’t be sure if he is as nice and the innocent as the boy who went to Pilani. Or maybe even he wasn’t that good as I think him to be in hindsight. It’s strange – nostalgia not only makes me like my earlier self, it also seems to shade its many follies and blemishes.

2011 was crazy. I loved my work, messed up my personal life forgetting the small things that makes so much of a difference like ensuring to visit parents at least every few months. But more importantly, somewhere along the way, my unflinching faith had waivered. I have never been able to figure out if I am religious. But I knew for sure I am spiritual. I believe in a power beyond human imagination. Depending upon my world view at that point of time, I am at times a follower of Advaita, believing in the fact that I am His manifestation, at others I can’t believe that someone like me can be a source of infinite power and then I start believing in God in the more traditional sense of the word. Those are the times when self doubt begins to creep in about the absolute goodness in this world which must win, in the end. Or so I believe.

What was worse was that I looked around to find people around me becoming intolerant, argumentative and outright rude. And maybe people think of me in the same light. I really do not know. We rarely stop to hear others’ views. We want to shout and impose our views on others. The earliest Greek philosophers and the Indian saints knew the importance of the dissident voice. The Greeks might have fed a few to lions or given them hemlock but more or less tolerance was a virtue. Today, it’s seen as diplomacy, a lack of spine or even submissiveness. What many forget is that an arrow that has been fired or a word spoken can never be retrieved.

One thing that made a real difference this year was the viewing of Miracle on 34^th Street a few days before Christmas in China. When faced with the question if Santa Claus exists, the judge rules that the people of America have reposed their faith in God and on every dollar bill they proclaim, “In God we trust.” All was asked of us to have faith as small as a grain of sand. Sometimes, even that’s difficult. And we need to remember why He exists. This was the 1994 adaptation of the 1947 classic but good nonetheless.

Nat Geo had this brilliant article on King James Bible in the December issue. It was The Bible that defined the English Language. This year around Christmas as I was cleaning up my attic, I chanced upon my Bible from school.

Everyone interprets religion and gospel in different ways. Everyone reading this would remember the story where The Son of God says, “let who has never sinned be the first to throw the stone.” I always thought it was the best proof that God loves us. I have not found anyone yet who can throw a stone. Allowing such a species to exist is perhaps the greatest demonstration of a cosmic filial love.

Another Christmas and An Old City

Chandler came back home because he could not make himself spend Christmas in Tulsa - alone, away from Monica and his friends. Perhaps I am not as strong as him and I do miss going home during Durga Puja quite a few times and so Chandler remains a hero in my eyes. But for me even Christmas is big – I have probably spent more Christmas at home than any other festival and given that we have a strong missionary influence on our education, Christmas meant something special as we grew up. On the last school day before the Christmas vacations, we would have an elaborate function with Christmas Carols and plays and then we would come home to cakes from Nahoums. The plum and the fruit cakes were the ones to die for. And somehow, magically they tasted better at Christmas.

This Christmas I was all set to spend in Mumbai. The midnight mass was becoming a regular fixture, unless of course I was in Hyderabad meeting people important to the important people in my life. (That line almost had an Inception-isque tone to it!!!) Anyway, I was about to meet Sheila, someone would have been brave enough to go with me. And then suddenly I had to travel to Bangalore on work. Frankly, I did not mind. This was one city where my Christmases had been spent dressed up as Santa. And while I can’t be the Grand Old Man again, I thought it will not be bad to see Christmas outside the IIMB campus.

And when you walk all around your favourite places in the city with one of your closest friends, Christmas indeed seems magical. In fact, two of us felt that we were back to the place where it all started. And Christmas just got better on Boxing Day. I managed to have the most awesome Bisibelle Bhath at another friend’s house, after having successfully travelled to Yellhanka and then realizing Yellehanka is not Hebbal as much as the auto driver and the bus conductor would want to make me believe. And finally to top it all off, the Christmas weekend dinner was at Sues, the only Caribbean restaurant I have ever liked with possibly the best Christmas Plum Cake I have had this year. See real food is as important as food for thought :)

The funny part is that the only city I have seen embrace Christmas in its entirety is Calcutta. Both Mumbai and Bangalore seem to be trying hard to show they celebrate Christmas but a few Christmas trees and thin Santas in malls don’t make Christmas. So it was left to me to find my own Christmas in Bengaluru.

My idea of Christmas is essentially Roman Catholic and often I am guilty of pre assuming that everywhere it will be the same and as I walked across the roads in Bangalore in the hope of hearing the bells of a Midnight Mass I figured how good the human race was adapting customs.

Recent reports in the newspapers seem to suggest that this is the time when India spends more than even Diwali. Perhaps it’s true. The temperatures bring down the rage that boils within this tropical country for most part of the year and the mood all around seems to be cheerful. People spend; in fact the Indian today is not afraid to spend and retailers and manufacturers across are trying to get a pie of this ever increasing rate of consumption.

But Christmas is so much more than consuming. To me Durga Puja is about the celebration of family and the triumph of Good over Evil; Diwali is about homecoming and celebrations and Christmas is always about being thankful for what we have received throughout the year, including the socks that Santa used to fill up regularly and religiously every one of my growing years.

I called up Mom the night before Christmas saying that she needs to hang my standard socks in my room while I would be doing the same in my room in Bangalore. Santa did visit Calcutta but skipped Bangalore. And I was really upset with the Old Man. Then Mom gave the perfectly logical reason. Santa has to now bring gifts even for my niece and he is not getting any younger. He would rather travel to three places for my niece than two for me. And I think that’s perfectly logical. Anyway given the Metro in Bangalore and Mumbai, I would not want his poor reindeers to get lost in this maze.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Prose and Poetry

One of the most endearing pictures of the quintessential Indian loser in love is walking crazily across the road, with a bottle in hand and speaking in his mind to his girl back home.

So yesterday I was in a similar situation with a few minor details changed. I had a benadryl bottle in my hand, I was walking unsteadily due to a hurt toe and I was on phone with my grandmom with the headset on. But anyway, my similarity with Dev D is a matter of a different post.

One of the many reasons I love talking to my grandparents is that they are the last remaining lexicons on Bengali poetry in my life. So as the Benadryl was beginning to have its effect on me and the taxis seemed to not notice my sizable bulk, she reminded me of a poem by Kalidas Roy.

Here’s the gist – The master and his disciple decide to go all the way on Rameshwaram to Tribeni to bring the sacred waters and pour it on the head of their deity in Rameshwaram. For days they walked and finally reached Tribeni, filled their container with water and started their long journey back.

On the way they meet a donkey almost dying of thirst amongst parched lands. The master stopped and asked the disciple to give the water to the donkey. A devoted disciple that he was, the disciple agreed without a question. But he wasn’t happy. 

After walking for a few more hours, the master asked, “What happened? You don’t seem to be happy.” 

The disciple burst out, “We went all the way, undertook all the hardships and now we are going back tired, dejected and empty handed because we gave the holy water to a donkey!”

The master smiled and answered, “Don’t you see how lucky we are? Because we were so tired, our Lord himself came all the way from Rameshwaram so that we could give him the water here itself. He did not want us to carry the water all the way with our tired bodies.”

Merry Christmas everyone. Spread the joy.

Warm Christmas

It is a warm Christmas afternoon in Mumbai. I am lying flat on my bed with the laptop snuggled on my knees and typing away. This has been an unforgettable Christmas; one of the best in my life till date. Being born and brought up in Calcutta and spending 12 years in a missionary school ensures that Christmas means something special. In Calcutta it was always the plum cakes from Nahoums, a sudden gift box from Flurry’s or Cathleen’s and a beautifully lit up Park Street. Mumbai disappointed me. You could not smell Christmas in the daily rush of office goers. You could not feel the nip in the air, the oranges that mom used to give every afternoon had transformed into packaged juice from tetra packs, Christmas was on the way of becoming just another date.

Things began to change with my trip to Bangalore. Forgetting my jacket back in Mumbai made certain that the night air chilled me to the bones; the Mallu bakeries had started putting the decorations in. Though not completely, but Christmas was arriving. And then friends went to Goa. Sitting in a luxury suite they called me to tell me about Christmas coming in Goa. Still, Mumbai was far behind.

My Christmas Eve was actually the Saturday night before Christmas. I spent it with a cherished friend, rummaging through the books on offer at Crosswords, picking up Mera Naam Joker and Kabhi Kabhi from Planet M, enjoying a dinner and coffee that felt so comfortable and at ease and without pretensions, running into a pastry shop just before it dropped its shutters and then walking down wide pavements savouring the taste of Blueberry cup cakes while the wind whispered with the trees lining the road. It was a magical night, made beautiful by the realization that at Christmas, we seldom are alone even we are miles away from home.

And so on the actual Christmas Eve I did not mind working late. The ‘call’ had come long back and so at around 10:30 in the night three wise men walked towards the old Portuguese Church in Dadar for the Midnight Mass. The hymns were grand and pompous and I felt as if I was in the sets of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie. Somewhere the innocence I remember in the voices of my school choir was missing but then as the clock struck midnight, a child was born unto this world to bring peace to mankind. When we came back it was pretty late. But that did not stop us from putting on music and dancing the night away. 2 CAs and 2 MBAs make an awful dance group. That’s all I have to say.

As a child, Christmas was never complete without the stocking and my sister would always win on the number of gifts we found every morning inside our stockings. Times have changed, but I always have a stocking by my bed before I tuck in for the night. Today I woke up late, almost when half the day was over. A quick glance at the stocking showed that it was empty. “The child has grown, the dream is gone.” Just as I was starting to make myself a nice Christmas Brunch, the doorbell rang. And there was a Christmas miracle at my doorstep.

I have a senior of mine in the beautiful city of Hyderabad. A senior who has been like an elder sister who never scolds even when you are acting like a complete nincompoop. A senior who never tires to hear of my cribs, a senior who exemplifies whatever good is left in this world. As I opened the door and in a complete daze signed the form, I could not believe my eyes. In front of me was a HUGE black current cake with the words on it, “Always be happy.”

Merry Christmas everyone.

PS: you read about the play Jazz in my last post. It had the most amazing original Christmas joke I have ever heard.

Why was Jesus not born in Bombay?

It requires three wise men and a virgin for the Birth of The Christ.