Rudolph’s red nose paled next to mine. Christmas brought on sneezing bouts of hay fever, till we realised it was exactly that. My dad carted home hay and goodwill from the local gaushala for our crib, and from the pong it threw up, probably cow dung. It had me sneezing and guests hurling accusatory glares at each other.
Growing up in Jamshedpur, we boasted neither fireplace nor stockings to hang over it. Our school socks, hung up in hope, were ignored by Santa. Instead, he often let out a howl, more suited to werewolf than reindeer, when punctured by a stapler while swift-gift-wrapping in the pitch dark. A growly parent sported a bandaged thumb the next morning, blamed on the cat, baby or saucepan.
We kids ranked each house our family visited by how sugary the kulkuls were, how crackly the murrukkus or how deep the hostess’ frown when we poked grimy fingers through the rose cookies. We ran to the first house, waddled to the fifth, often fell asleep at the sixth.
We prayed and sang for peace on Earth and hoped a few white lies would pass under the heavenly radar. Like hanging out last year’s Christmas cards on a string across the drawing room, because the postman, disgruntled with his tip, hadn’t delivered enough this year. We stuck tinsel and Santa’s lobbed-off head across the walls, loaded gaudily-wrapped shoeboxes by the tree, till it toppled on to the nearest guest and his fifth glass of ginger wine. Home-made wine and cake recipes, of course, were secrets that not even the Secret Service could pry from the aunties who made them.
When I was three, I debuted in a nativity skit, as a shepherd child squished into the choir, clutching an imposter lamb — my teddy bear taped over with cotton — that I kept chewing on in stage fright. One of the three kings had to carry me off, mid-song, with an acute tummy ache from eating all that cotton.
Later, travelling and living across India offered many other memorable Yuletides. Bombay, where the grounds outside the church filled up hours earlier, chairs handcuffed by tightly-tied kerchiefs, provoking snarky murmurs of ‘How many chairs will your aunty sit on?’ Calcutta’s cathedral, where people crammed in, 14 to a pew-of-eight, irrespective of caste, creed or Kothai-boshbo – as unavoidably Calcuttan as Liquor-cha afterwards. In Tamil Nadu, gamely singing about white Christmases while fanning away the stifling heat with hymnals, where I witnessed an unholy fist-fight over whose kanjeevaram sari the Mother Mary statue should wear that night. Goan masses, where sermons weren’t long enough or successful enough unless someone fell asleep and snored loudly. Bangalore, where a street dog curled up near baby Jesus in the manger and no one chased it away. And then in a small town on a work trip, sitting through an entire midnight mass in a language I didn’t speak, where people kneeled through three hours, and I ended up praying that they’d get whatever they were praying for.
Here’s raising a filter kaapi to a very merry desi Christmas to you and those you love.
Where Jane De Suza, author of Flyaway Boy, pokes her nose into our perfect lives.