Romancing the Capital - Part II

Christmas in New Delhi

For once it was truly cold and chill, like I always wanted Christmas Eve to be (the best Christmas would be snow-covered roads and sidewalks with roof tops sporting a good hick blanket of snow! - effect of picture perfect cards and Christmas movies I guess). Delhi gets electrifyingly chill in winters (unlike the warm and hot tropical climate back in Goa) and this winter season was promising to be no different. The newspapers reported a warm Chrismas the next day, but sevenish degrees (celcius) is NOT warm. If you want warm, come to Goa!

However, it was a respite from the usual 4 degrees onslaught of Western Disturbances - I'm refering to the climatic phenomenon named after high pressure built up over the Mediterranean area.Yesterday we touched 3.9 degrees in Delhi. As I recollect the past few days, my Christmas day stands out as a unique experience. The Sunday before Noel, I enrolled with my local church choir. I make it a point to atleast join in the choirs around the places I stay so that I can at least participate in my religious obligations without losing track. Today, the world has become a lot different from what our parents told us it was like when were just toddlers. New equations and definitions are made each day: good is bad, bad is good, evil is cool, dark is fun. With these transient concepts and ideologies, the urban human mass is losing sight of permanent principles, sound wisdom and the true essense of life. Like the permafrost, some things don't change with seasons. Good will always be good, and evil will always be evil. Some may argue on how that depends on one's perspective or point of view or affiliation or orientation. To them I'd say: suit yourself. But you can't kid yourself too for long.

The english choir at St. Luke's Church is conducted by a talented pianist Sister Marianne. The lot happily welcomed me as they were short of another male voice. And they shocked me when they said that they were about to practise for Christmas night service just once - without having done it ever before. Well, they must be either extremely good at the singing or they were just not dedicated enough. You see, the choir holds a very pivotal role in shaping the mood and theme of the eucharistic celebration service. By rendering spiritually stiring songs whose lyrics are in lines with the bible readings of that day, and with musically beckoning and melodious tunes, choirs can lead multitudes to a wholesome celebration experience and make an otherwise drab event one of extreme satisfaction. Turns out this choir was good - made of some really talented sopranos (high pitched female voices) and altos (bass male voices), and with Sr. Marianne's flawless efforts, we came up with a good amount of harmony of voice and synchronisation. I was one the tenors :) (male high pitch voice).

The midnight service was at Fr. Agnel's High School auditorium, one of South Delhi's respected schools. The service was partly in English and partly in Hindi to cater to the multi-lingual crowd and the large Hindi-speaking north Indian population. So there was also a hindi choir that complemented us and helped in taking the service ahead. Apart from a few mistakes here and there, we ended the lovely service singing "Feliz Navidade" - Merry Christmass in Spanish. Mass was followed by some cake and coffee distributed by some church volunteers to all present. People wishing each other, strangers hugging and sharing the joy of the occassion, youth shouting and holding hands, nuns smiling to each other and gesturing to people littles wishes, priests greeting people at the doorway, but all this happened in a very orderly fashion. The entire crowd was out of the building in less than half an hour with very little noise. No one had to scream to be heard while talking and wishing. The cops who were stationed outside incase of any eventuality (terror strikes maybe) had an uneventful break and left soon after. And soon the place was deserted as though nothing ever happened.

The choir members were invited by Sr. Marianne back to her nunnery for some more cake and coffee to share the Christmas with her sister nuns. We happily obliged and went over. After a few games and some delicious cake people's parents were beginning to get woried. It was 3 am. So we reluctantly said our goodbyes, promising to meet for the New Year service and headed home. I had no family in Delhi to go back to - it felt strange for a minute but soon got over the feeling. My first Christmas alone and I was determined to make it special.

Christmas day was a fine and pleasant morning. But I missed getting up to the music of carols playing from some where in the house, the smell of cakes and exotic Goan sweets, the colour of buntings and decorations - green and red - two ghastly colours I hate (for their association with Parry's Pan Pasand toffee), but somehow adore during Christmas. I missed it all. But this time, I woke up looking forward to what the day had instore for me. I remembered I had an appointment to keep - Christmas lunch at Constantino's.

We became friends when we met at a Goan cultural programme. He was studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Constantino had organised an elaborate lunch over at his place with some of his friends from JNU. It was going to quite some experience. On arriving at Constantino's I found a gathering of people from across the world - There was Dahl (I'm not sure that's the way it's spelt); she's from Thailand, Arti - an NRI from the Gulf, Melissa from Dakota (USA), Junaid - from J&K, Joao Pedro - from Portugal, Quik (again spelling could be wrong) - from Japan, Paul - from Nigeria and of course me - from Goa, India. Some international gathering! It was envigorating and enriching to socialise with people from such a varied background. Most were students at JNU. After we got to know each other, and a very exotic multi-cuisine lunch, we exchanged our gifts and played a game of dumb-shar-ads as we sipped some lovely Port Wine (courtesy: Joao). Throughout the day we engaged in conversation on many topics, from language, environment, India, social classes and research. On some days I would call this kinda of an exercise as BO-RING (said like a donkey: hee-haw). But that day, it was different. It was truly stupendous the insights we got into people's experiences and way of thinking. Individual thought-processes is something that amazes me - how one thought leads to another and another and another..... It's amazing how far we get sometimes, and it's amazing to watch others at it! That day a field day for me! :) God surely created one super-masterpiece when he designed the nerve cells and the synapse.

But all good things have to come to an end (I don't really believe in that by the way - only for the sake of prose - good things can stay forever also, we just never give good things a chance). So we finally said our good-byes and headed our ways hoping to meet again. On reaching my crib, I called it a day soon enough. I guess the outing and the flurry of thinking activity the conversations had evoked from me, along with the wine, all simply drained off of the last of my inhibitions. With a quick wash and a few short phone calls back home, I whispered my little prayers to God thanking Him for the unique experience and snuggled under the blanket. I might have snored that night.

Merry Christmas