…Vom Dorf, drin ich geboren,
Trieb weit mich das Geschick,
Das Dorf, das ich verloren,
Grüßt jetzt im Traum mein Blick.

 

…From the town where I was born,
Has driven my destiny,
The town which I have lost,
My glance is greeting me in my dreams.

          Michael Albert, 1856.

 

 

Priti Aisola

Christmas in India

 

Two days back when I accepted to give a brief glimpse into Christmas in India, I visited a church barely three kilometers from home- a church that I have been seeing from a distance since I was in college here in Hyderabad. For some inexplicable reason, I never stopped by to see it, and that kept its sacred mystery alive for me.

 

As soon as I enter the spacious church grounds by the side gate my eyes rest on three bushes of bougainvillea flaunting their display of flashy pink blossoms. The greenish brown pods of tamarind hang from the tree which muses quietly on my solitary presence there. At five in the evening it is deserted. The peach brown building is wrapped in an old world ambience reminiscent of British India. I walk across to the mottled concrete benches to one side of the tacky blue-tiled baptismal pond and take in the front façade of the All Saints’ Church. My driver who is a Roman Catholic was slightly reluctant to bring me to this Protestant church. He would’ve liked to show me his church, the St. Mary’s Church. Semi-circular steps lead to the main entrance of this church whose roof is decorated with many small towers. A cross in subdued blue crowns the centre of the church front. The monotony of the huge white door under the arched doorway is broken by black wooden beams forming a triangular pattern ending in a curving vine and a floral motif.

 

I wait for the church to open for the evening service. It remains shut. Its solemn silence seeps into me, broken occasionally by the sound of vehicles hurtling away on the main road and two women passersby chatting loudly. As I sit on the bench my thoughts wander to the two churches in Chennai (formerly called Madras) that I have wished to see and once again missed seeing out of sheer lethargy. Each time we go to Chennai, we take the beach road to get to our friend’s place in Mylapore. And each time we go past the Santhome Basilica, I am drawn towards the luminous white neo-Gothic church, and I tell myself that I must visit it sometime. The impressive Basilica which was built in 1898 has two relics of Thomas Dydimus, the Doubting Apostle, who came to India in 52 AD. Enshrined in the crypt are a small hand bone and the head of a lance.

 

I also think of Luz Church, a mile from Santhome Basilica, the oldest surviving church structure in Chennai. Kattu Kovil, Forest Shrine, as the church is known in Tamil, has a charming legend about its inception in the early sixteenth century. Hopelessly lost at sea, some Portuguese sailors spotted a light which guided them safely to the Madras coast. The spot at which the light disappeared, they built Luz Church, dedicated to Our Lady of Light.

 

This year I am going to be in Chennai for Christmas. I hope to fulfill my wish of visiting the two churches.

 

My driver Xavier tells me something about Christmas in his home. Every year, two days before Christmas, he goes to St Ann’s School in his neighborhood and helps the nuns create the Nativity scene and decorate the Christmas tree. He does all the shopping for the materials for this. In return for his ready help and smiling labor, the nuns give him a new set of clothes for him and his kids. His teenage daughter sometimes dresses up as Santa Claus and distributes gifts to the kids. Apart from the rose cake, wine cake, his wife makes Indian sweets such as ariselu (made from rice flour and jaggery), kulkuls (a crispy golden brown sweet made from flour, eggs and coconut cream), and savories such as murukku (made from rice and lentil flour liberally sprinkled with whole sesame seeds). The family takes part in the Midnight Mass and looks forward to the festivity, singing and dancing later. Occasionally, some foreigners join in, and that, for him, is one of the highlights of Christmas Eve.

 

I ask my newly-found friend Pallavi, who is a Protestant, about Christmas in her home. She reminisces about Christmas when she was a child in Lucknow, a city in the Hindi belt of India. Brought up on stories replete with images of snow, rein-deer, Santa Claus, sleigh, stockings, fireplace, chimney, poinsettia, holly, she dreams of celebrating a white Christmas somewhere in Europe one of these days. Preparations for Christmas would start a month in advance, she tells me. Whitewashing the house, washing the curtains, the bedspreads, table linen – a vigorous sprucing up of the home. One or two days before Christmas, aunts, uncles, cousins, would show up and the women of the house would go on a massive cooking spree. Again the sweets and savories were primarily Indian, and here, they were typical of North India, more specifically, of the state of Uttar Pradesh – gujias, shakkarpara, namakpara, and so on. They also made bolinhas, the Portuguese-Goan cookies, rose cake and a rich plum cake. A day before Christmas, Pallavi’s mother would take a trunk-load full of flour and other ingredients for the cakes to the local baker’s, spend almost the entire day there supervising the baking of cakes, about forty to fifty loaf-size ones. When she returned and opened the trunk full of cake treasures the heady aroma of freshly-baked cakes would permeate the house generously and the children would inhale it lustily.

 

Now that Pallavi has a family of her own, she, her husband and their daughter always bake the Christmas cake together. The candied fruit, currants, raisins, plums are kept ready. One of them sieves the flour, the second one whips the eggs, the third person creams the butter and the sugar, and so on. This joint effort helps concretize the Christmas message of harmony, cheer and togetherness.

 

In India what is interesting to note is, that a region, a place, its social, cultural, religious milieu, its natural physical environment has influenced the celebration of Christmas. Some of the sweets and savories mentioned above are common to the Hindus and the Christians. Apart from the greeting Merry Christmas, the greeting which is a combination of Hindi and Urdu is, “Bada din Mubarak ho” (Greetings to you on this Big day). Santa Claus is called Christmas Taatha (grandfather) among the Telugu and the Tamil Christians in South India. Apart from lighting candles, oil lamps are also lit, a tradition prevalent among the Hindus celebrating Diwali, the Festival of Lights. And the homes are adorned with mango leaves strung together to festoon doorways. Floor patterns called kolam, made with rice flour or brightly colored powders and chalks also beautify the front yards of homes – these are auspicious rituals that are primarily Hindu but have been assimilated into the Christmas festivities in South India.

 

Finally, the voice of my writer-friend Shinie Antony, a voice graced with the spirit of quiet charity, “I keep my Christmas simple and fuss-free. As kids my parents kept this day, along with our birthdays, for visiting old-age homes or orphanages. I follow this with my kids too; going behind the scenes with Santa, helping with food, tying up tinsel on a tree; with total strangers, strung together only by goodwill.”

 

 

 

David Hughes

Christmas in England

 

I've been asked to jot a few thoughts down on 'what goes on' at Christmas in England. If you already live there, you'll know all this, so just proceed to the main course.

 

Decorations do indeed include boughs of holly and mistletoe. (There's a tradition of snogging anyone you fancy under sprigs of mistletoe, although in my case, of course, the injunction's sill in force.) Christmas trees--introduced into this country by the heavily German Albert, Queen Victoria's husband--and everything you can put on them, from robin decorations (we have an unstable owl), through to tinsel and baubles...And every year about this time a massive Christmas tree arrives in Trafalgar Square, central London--a gift from Norway for the United Kingdom's support in the Second World War.

 

Christmas carols are always popular, with services of nine lessons and carols. The most famous of these: 'A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols' from King's College. Cambridge, was first broadcast in 1928--believe it or not.

 

Christmas Day itself is the big day here. A traditional breakfast (in the Midlands at least--the old kingdom of Mercia) involves pork pie (yes, we're big on pies here, or were), while we check on what Father Christmas has left (hopefully). Then at some point during the day there's the giving and (again hopefully) receiving of presents.

 

Mince pies are a favourite, before, during and after. They used to be made with real mincemeat (as in mutton) spiced with cloves and cinnamon and so on, but now mincemeat means a sort of spicy, sweet, pungent dried fruit mix which turns into a gooey, lovely mess when it's cooked in a pastry shell. You're supposed to have one for every month apparently.

 

Christmas Dinner is a roast in just about every household I know of; turkey being very popular since I was a child. Goose is a much older tradition, and it's been making a steady comeback. (Goose fat was recommended by a celebrity chef a few years ago in a Christmas special--for roasting potatoes--and supermarkets sold out instantaneously; it's become known as the 'Delia effect'.)

 

Christmas pudding (also known as plum pudding, or plum duff--it's another dried fruit, spices, and suet dish with quite a lot of drink in) is the traditional pudding, very often served flaming with brandy. It's often served with something you only ever see at this time of the year called brandy butter. Very rich: very foolish.

 

On Christmas afternoon, a Bond movie is served on telly, as is the Queen's speech to the nation. In the evening there's normally a Christmas special of a top comedy. The Only Fools and Horses and One Foot in the Grave specials are among the most enjoyable I've ever seen.

 

And that's only the start of the Twelve Days of Christmas (you know, as in the song). Boxing Day, which I thought was always the day after Christmas, but apparently it's the first week day after…is a day of sales, and sporting events. It's a public holiday here, like Christmas Day, unless of course you work in retail--or you're a sportsperson--or a pantomime actor (see below).

 

The most sense I could get out of the interweb is that the name comes from the tradition of charitable giving (in boxes…). But its origins do seem to be a bit lost in the proverbial mists.

 

The 'feasting' goes on until Twelfth Night. It's supposed to be unlucky to keep decorations up after this (but I know a few people who do, and they don't seem to have any real problem).

 

Looking Twelfth Night up on Wikipedia, I was interested to see that in Tudor England it was also the end of a winter festival that began on All Hallows' Eve. Apparently a cake containing one pea and one bean inside was shared at get-togethers--with whoever got them being made king and queen for the evening. (The wonderful phrase 'Lord of Misrule'--presiding over merry-making--is closely connected with this).

 

And I couldn't go without mentioning the wonderful--and still hugely popular--theatrical tradition of Pantomimes. Kicking off on Boxing Day, I'm not even sure I can describe them. They're a roller-coaster of a play with a lot of bawdy gags, a lot of cross dressing (the hero is traditionally played by an actress, and the Pantomime Dame is a male comic actor in splendid, really obvious drag) singing, and loads of getting the audience to join in--as in 'HE'S BEHIND YOU!'.

 

I heard Kevin Spacey on the radio last year talking about how he was absolutely fascinated by pantomime when he first met it over here--and that he hadn't really ever seen the like before. And talking of Mr Spacey, my mum went to a pantomime at the Barbican where Roger Lloyd Pack (a very well known comic actor in the UK, who plays Trigger in Only Fools and Horses) was starring as Dame Alice in Dick Whittington. At the end, he addressed the delighted audience with the words. 'If you liked what you saw, I'm Roger Lloyd Pack, and this is the Barbican. If you didn't, then my name is Kevin Spacey, and this is the Old Vic. Thank you. Good night!'

 

 

 

Allan Stevo

Where Advent is Not a 40-Day-Long Climax

 

At this time of year, I get a phone call that tells me to come home and to come home now. Come home for Thanksgiving, stay for Christmas. And I don’t usually listen. Because festive Christmas is something far from the running around to buy things and the easily sickening Christmas music that seems to invade every moment of the season.

 

Far away from home, in Bratislava, Slovakia, is where I always yearn to spend my advent, hurrying away to see my family in the day or two before Christmas. A day or two being too short for the incessant commercialization of the holiday to ruin the holiday for me.

 

A day or two. A day or two. A day or two.

 

May I divide the days into advent and Christmas? I hope so. There is the anticipation. And then the coming.

 

A lover coming on too strong, a dentist sticking his big latex hands in too cruelly, a technician using a hammer on a laptop computer. Too strong. Too strong. A day or two of that is enough. Enough brutality. Enough force. Enough.

 

Where I long to be is where it’s gentle and festive enough. In late rainy November of Bratislava and the early snows of December, in weather that most people avoid until very close to Christmas. That’s where I long to be. And I long for it so badly that I go out with my recently split boots and without my umbrella, recently turned inside out one too many times by the wind, and I search for the tastes of the season.

 

In the air cigánska pečienka - “gypsy liver” - and onions are grilling, almost boiling wine is steaming, and loksa smeared with pig fat, goose liver, poppy seeds, or nuts are being bitten into with already greasy teeth sticking out from the greasy lips of someone you love.

 

You’re far from home, but you’re far from home surrounded by a family of friends, friends you neglect sometimes, that you cling to other times. After the hard push of work of the last few months, it’s most likely they are friends you’ve neglected more than clung to. And in this market around you, is where you will find them again and share the stories of the lost moments together. No Christmas music playing, or if it does, just once in a while, no commitment to stay long for a coffee, just the short commitment of a glass of varené víno, which “mulled wine” doesn’t convey the same happy sound of.

 

And even though you’re standing, and you don’t have to sit for an hour as you would for a coffee, or two hours as you would for a meal. Even though no one is treating anyone else, so there is no need to stay and reciprocate. Even though that’s how it is, you and that friend that you haven’t seen in too long, stand in the cold in the Christmas market, sipping your hot wines for much longer than you would sit in a café for an afternoon coffee, much longer than you would sit together after a meal.

 

Those friends around you are the advent, the preparation, the coming for the holy family that lays ahead. They are the gentleness, the reminder of season, they are the ones you have chosen to spend your life and times with. They are the preparation for the time with the ones thrust upon you, the family, the family you can never divorce, that you love dearly, that made you so much of who you are, who you so gladly moved away from because Christmas every day of the year is just too much. And so is a dentist’s glove jammed into your mouth uncaringly. But the gentle, gentle introduction of the season, that starts with a little cup of wine and few friends, is the gentle introduction that makes the full force of Christmas on those few days spent at home possible. Desirable. Ideal.