Cards and chronicles

Our first Christmas card this season was warmly welcomed by my 86-year-old mother but not for its appearance. Indifferent to artistic merit, she barely observed the robin redbreast against a snowy backdrop. She was equally uninterested in the card as a precursor of greetings to follow. 

When I remarked cheerfully that if ‘one swallow does not make a summer’, a lone ‘robin’ could not comprise Christmas, Mother only said quietly, ‘The card is from Beryl.’ I should have guessed! Every Christmas, Beryl’s card is the earliest to arrive. 

Mother is quick to reciprocate with one of her own, usually with an Indian-Christmas motif. The two have been corresponding for more years than Mother recalls and, as long  ago as 1957, my parents met Beryl and her family in the UK. I recently discovered that the  pen-friends go back well over six decades. Clearing a cupboard, I chanced upon a small  nondescript-looking notebook. Intrigued by the date on its cover, I abandoned my tidying     (with alacrity!) and settled down to read Mother’s diary of 1948.

In that engrossing narrative, young Olivia recounts everyday experiences of her post-academic, simple but satisfying life in Madras. She sings in the church choir, writes poems and stories, plays badminton and tennis, embroiders cushion covers and tablecloths,  enjoys concerts and movies, pays visits and receives them in return. She also reads voraciously, devouring novels by Jane Austen, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell and lesser-known authors. Shopping is a favourite pastime: ‘Bought a Poona sari for Rs. 20,’ is the March 8 entry.

I wonder how much ‘Aunt Emily’ spent on the ‘lovely blue sari with gold border’ she presented 21-year-old Olivia on Christmas Day! That generous lady has departed this world, as have several who feature in the journal. Notable among those whose passing is recorded in 1948 is Mahatma Gandhi. On January 30, Olivia describes what she witnessed in the immediate aftermath of his assassination: ‘Cars, buses and trains were stopped by a huge mob and fire engines were rushing about, as shops were set on fire.’While many have gone, Beryl shines on! Mother hears from her only annually now but in that fascinating account of bygone times, ‘I got a letter from Beryl’ and ‘I wrote to  Beryl’ are regular refrains. ‘Spent the morning painting Christmas cards,’ writes Olivia on December 13, 1948, but her card to Beryl was sent sooner, for that was an age not just of  snail mail but sail mail! 

How I wish Mother had kept Beryl’s Christmas card! Might it have borne a ‘robin’ like the one that would come 65 years later? Not too fanciful a thought. Apparently, that bright bird has adorned Christmas cards ever since the Victorian era, when it represented those who delivered them. Resplendent in red jackets, postmen were popularly known as ‘Robins’!