Christmas in Kolar
For most people of Bengali descent, Durga pujo is the yearly event that they wait for eagerly. It's four days of sheer magic with new clothes, food, music and theatrical performances and all round fun. People from far away come home if they can. So does the goddess Durga. On the one hand she is the fierce divine mother slaying the evil demon; on the other, she is the married daughter visiting her parents' home with her four children for the four days of the festival. (Durga strikes many different emotional chords in the heart of a Bengali.) So the fifth day is tinged with sadness because Durga is leaving. Some people actually cry as they say goodbye to her. Then they comfort themselves by going off to visit friends, neighbours and senior members of the family, stuffing themselves with goodies, particularly sweets, in each house. That phase can go on for days - there are a lot of people to visit.
I didn't get to enjoy Durga pujo until I went to live in Kolkata in sixth grade. Even then, it was not an immersive experience for me like it was for people who had their own family or neighbourhood pujo. (I'm always envious when I hear those stories - rehearsing for weeks before the pujo, watching the clay images take shape on straw scaffolds, waking up early on the days of the pujo to cut fruit.) But I did get to wear a different new dress each day of the pujo, eat good stuff and go see durga images all around the city. That was pretty exciting too.
Until sixth grade, I had Christmas. That wasn't an immersive experience either. (That is the fate of a person caught between places and cultures, never to be totally a part of anything; my family was not Christian and we didn't go to church for Christmas.) But, like Durga pujo in my later school years, it was still a lot of fun.
For one, there were the tindi platters that people sent around to each other. We would receive several plates of fried, sweet and savory snacks (like this).
Then there was the carol singing. We lived inside the compound of the mission hospital where my father worked. A few days before Christmas, a group of carolers, carrying lighted candles, would go from house to house and through the hospital wards singing all the traditional songs such as "O come all ye faithful". My mother usually bought a box of candy to distribute to the singers when they showed up at our house. I joined them a few times, tagging along holding a candle with a large paper collar to protect my hand from the melted wax. It was fun to blend your voice in unison with everybody and see all the decorations people had put up in their houses and inside the hospital wards. In those days it was mostly multi-colored paper streamers and honeycomb tissue ornaments. We put up a few of those too. The most exquisite decorations were in the Graff ward, the hospital wing where the American missionary doctors and nurses lived. They had gorgeous ceramic nativity sets where you could admire a glowing baby Jesus in a manger with little toy animals all around.
Finally, there were the three days of communal performances. As far as I remember, one day there was a general talent show with children's songs and dances, one day an English play and another day a play in the local language, Kannada. Many of the children's items would be repeated from year to year. There were the obligatory "Sound of music" songs, I think Edelweiss and the other one where kids obediently popped out on cue to say "cuckoo". Then there was a tea-picker's dance from the state of Assam (I have no idea why - we were in South India, Assam is in the far north-east). Maybe that dance kept repeating because someone had painstakingly created surprisingly durable costumes many years ago and no one wanted to throw them out? The dancers wore short striped skirts with baskets on their backs (to mimic the real ones tea pickers wear to toss in tea leaves). The words of the song sounded like total gibberish. (I have, in fact, with the help of google and the the first couple of remembered words, verified recently that the words were gibberish descended from Assamese, a not surprising evolution considering that no one in Kolar had any familiarity with the original language). The melody, though, was lilting enough and the kids were cute - so the dance was enjoyed by all. One year I got to be Mary in the Christmas tableau and sat on stage with a doll in my lap for what felt like a very long time. I wasn't too thrilled to be given such a central part. Mary's costume was plain. I envied the angels who had gorgeous, shimmering, lacy wings.
The Kannada plays I have no recollection of. But some of the English plays stand out in my memory. Mainly because the star performer was my dad. Practically all the plays I remember (maybe there were just two) had a king, possibly Herod, as the main character. With his booming voice, my dad made quite an impression. I heard later that he used to throw off his coperformers by ad-libbing the dialogue. But I think they took it in stride and much fun was had by all.
All of this may not sound like much. But you have to remember, there was no TV then. We did not have an abundance of toys or snacks or books with colourful pictures. We lived in a place, where with sunset, real silence and darkness descended on the earth. For us, small town sixties children, every little bite of a rose cookie, every glimpse of a rosy Santa on a Christmas card, every night walk down a crunchy gravel pathway lighted by a dim flashlight on your way to watch a Christmas performance was the pinnacle of excitement and cause for unutterable delight.
I didn't get to enjoy Durga pujo until I went to live in Kolkata in sixth grade. Even then, it was not an immersive experience for me like it was for people who had their own family or neighbourhood pujo. (I'm always envious when I hear those stories - rehearsing for weeks before the pujo, watching the clay images take shape on straw scaffolds, waking up early on the days of the pujo to cut fruit.) But I did get to wear a different new dress each day of the pujo, eat good stuff and go see durga images all around the city. That was pretty exciting too.
Until sixth grade, I had Christmas. That wasn't an immersive experience either. (That is the fate of a person caught between places and cultures, never to be totally a part of anything; my family was not Christian and we didn't go to church for Christmas.) But, like Durga pujo in my later school years, it was still a lot of fun.
For one, there were the tindi platters that people sent around to each other. We would receive several plates of fried, sweet and savory snacks (like this).
Then there was the carol singing. We lived inside the compound of the mission hospital where my father worked. A few days before Christmas, a group of carolers, carrying lighted candles, would go from house to house and through the hospital wards singing all the traditional songs such as "O come all ye faithful". My mother usually bought a box of candy to distribute to the singers when they showed up at our house. I joined them a few times, tagging along holding a candle with a large paper collar to protect my hand from the melted wax. It was fun to blend your voice in unison with everybody and see all the decorations people had put up in their houses and inside the hospital wards. In those days it was mostly multi-colored paper streamers and honeycomb tissue ornaments. We put up a few of those too. The most exquisite decorations were in the Graff ward, the hospital wing where the American missionary doctors and nurses lived. They had gorgeous ceramic nativity sets where you could admire a glowing baby Jesus in a manger with little toy animals all around.
Finally, there were the three days of communal performances. As far as I remember, one day there was a general talent show with children's songs and dances, one day an English play and another day a play in the local language, Kannada. Many of the children's items would be repeated from year to year. There were the obligatory "Sound of music" songs, I think Edelweiss and the other one where kids obediently popped out on cue to say "cuckoo". Then there was a tea-picker's dance from the state of Assam (I have no idea why - we were in South India, Assam is in the far north-east). Maybe that dance kept repeating because someone had painstakingly created surprisingly durable costumes many years ago and no one wanted to throw them out? The dancers wore short striped skirts with baskets on their backs (to mimic the real ones tea pickers wear to toss in tea leaves). The words of the song sounded like total gibberish. (I have, in fact, with the help of google and the the first couple of remembered words, verified recently that the words were gibberish descended from Assamese, a not surprising evolution considering that no one in Kolar had any familiarity with the original language). The melody, though, was lilting enough and the kids were cute - so the dance was enjoyed by all. One year I got to be Mary in the Christmas tableau and sat on stage with a doll in my lap for what felt like a very long time. I wasn't too thrilled to be given such a central part. Mary's costume was plain. I envied the angels who had gorgeous, shimmering, lacy wings.
The Kannada plays I have no recollection of. But some of the English plays stand out in my memory. Mainly because the star performer was my dad. Practically all the plays I remember (maybe there were just two) had a king, possibly Herod, as the main character. With his booming voice, my dad made quite an impression. I heard later that he used to throw off his coperformers by ad-libbing the dialogue. But I think they took it in stride and much fun was had by all.
All of this may not sound like much. But you have to remember, there was no TV then. We did not have an abundance of toys or snacks or books with colourful pictures. We lived in a place, where with sunset, real silence and darkness descended on the earth. For us, small town sixties children, every little bite of a rose cookie, every glimpse of a rosy Santa on a Christmas card, every night walk down a crunchy gravel pathway lighted by a dim flashlight on your way to watch a Christmas performance was the pinnacle of excitement and cause for unutterable delight.
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