Christmas and I

 In Thalassery, my hometown in Keralam, Christians were in a negligible minority. On Court Road, where I lived, there was just one family – that of Mabel and Ida. Mabel was my age and one of my closest friends. We walked to school and college together. Our families knew everything about each other. Her father, Earnest, a lawyer like my father, was my father’s friend and the three of us children, and two fathers, often went to the local beach together.

   So, Christmas was not a memorable event. But Mabel’s Mummy always sent us home-baked Christmas cake, and I often had a lavish Christmas dinner in their home. That was about the size of our Christmas. Mabel’s family attended midnight mass at the local Methodist Church. We didn’t exchange gifts or cards; no one had that kind of spare money then.

   When I got married to Balan, and went to live in Colombo, the texture of Christmas underwent a sea-change. My husband’s urban family, though Hindus, celebrated Christmas with gifts for the children in the family. So, I was drawn into the obligation of gifts for Balan’s nephews and nieces. The more westernised wings of the family went to Christmas balls and Balan’s British employers hosted a lavish celebration at the luxurious Galle Face Hotel every year. I went, but never having danced anything but Bharatha Natyam before, lurked at the sides of the ball room, and was glad to make my escape before the revelry became raucous.

   When I had children of my own, Balan would bring gifts home. Sometimes sparklers. In Nigeria and Zambia, we often went to the houses of our Christian friends for dinner; it was all very low key.

   When did it escalate into this money-eating monster? I hardly noticed the transformation, The deluge of packing paper at the end of Christmas week always irritated me. I didn’t see the point. But my grand daughter begged for Christmas trees and baubles, as soon as she could talk, and we obliged. Now she’s past the baubles stage; spending-money is much more in demand. Phew! As they say.

   This year, we shall give her some money and let Christmas skid past. As usual, I shall have dinner with Mary and Michael. Any excuse to enjoy their cooking and the company of the two families together. We met up in Zambia in the late sixties and her mother hosted the fancy dinner. Our children grew up in each other’s houses.

   So, the ritual persists. Perhaps that is what it is about – bringing family and friends together over a rich dinner.  I will settle for that.

 

The Sound Track to my Life

 Our Philips radio, the Bakelite monster, was the first on our street, Court Road, so called because the District Courts were just a hop, skip and a jump away. It arrived in 1945, a year after electricity in the houses. I remember hearing about Gandhiji’s assassination on that black and brown box, and the whole neighbourhood crowding into our corridor, weeping while they listened. It had big dials in front and needed a great deal of tender coaxing and fiddling before it surrendered its news-nuggets. 

     I remember Nehru making that famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, at midnight, on the ramparts of the red fort, the day India became independent in August, 1947. ‘At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom...’ The hair on my arms stood on end.

   Transistor radios arrived while I was living in remote Ikot Ekpene. I got one in 1964 for my father when I travelled to India after my first tour – if you were Indian in those days, the whole point about going overseas was to return with as many electronic gadgets as you could carry in your hand-luggage, wires trailing down the gangway. You walked down the narrow aisle in an aeroplane knocking down passengers right and left with your loot.

   The radio, in one shape or another, has come to stay in my life. In all the African countries I worked, the World Service heralded my day in, and I slept, at the end of the day, to the world news, in the dulcet tones of another privileged gentleman (no women then) with cut-glass accents. On an insomniac night, the national anthem and our gracious queen put me to sleep. They bred the news readers specially, I used to think, in exclusive enclaves, to confound the world.

   Radios got smaller with the years, and now, I have a tiny unobtrusive white companion which is always within hands-reach when I sleep. When I travel, it is the first object I pack along with my pills and potions of senility, and my multiple sticks for support.

   When the little box, quite ugly in white plastic, is not near me, I fret and fidget till I get it back to where it belongs. At the moment it is all agog about Afghanistan. I am waiting for that day when it tells me that our slippery P M has gone AWOL for good.

 

   

 

 Street lights arrived in Thalassery around 1943. You had to buy a connection to the house, so by 1947, we had electric lights in the veranda, the corridor and Achan's room upstairs. The 40 watt bulbs didn't do much, so Achan also had a small lamp clipped to the headboard of his bed, by which we both read.

   Naniedathy cooked with firewood and debris from the coconut palms, which smoked a lot when lighted. This was a fallback when we ran out of firewood. Krishnan, the rickshaw wallah took me to school and later, Usman, who had T B and coughed a lot. The first car owner on the road was my father, it was a small second-hand Morris minor, with a sliding panel in the roof for when it got too hot in the car. When it rained that panel let the rain in.

   Life was paired down. In all of Thalassery there were four cars and these were owned by doctors. There were no supermarkets -- fish and meat were sold in a covered hall in the centre of town; often the fishermen or women brought it to our houses for sale.

   The carbon footprints were barely visible. Now, we have two cars in the driveway and lights blaring in empty rooms all over the house. In our small way we have all contributed to the looming climate catastrophe. And listening to the 'leaders' at the COP26, I cannot imagine anything much is going to happen.

   In our house, we are going to use the car less, not leave lights on in empty rooms. Maybe organise a rota so that our children share cars to school, with families down the road. Another thought: we could boycott companies who are carbon-profligate by not buying their goods. The only place we can persuade business is in their wallets. During the Freedom Movement in the forties in India we had some success with not buying imported goods. This was piecemeal, more gesture than a major event. But gestures are important too. Perhaps this is a battle which can only be won at street and family level.

   I wonder what the young ones will do next. Greta Thunberg is quite a force.