JOIN USA December monologue
December! It’s that time of the year when you’ve completely forgotten about the resolutions you made 11 months ago to not eat cake again. It’s the time to buy yourself that pretty looking, uncomfortable red stiletto you will hardly wear.
It’s also that time when you can stuff yourself shamelessly with plum cake, galgals and rose cookies from All Saint’s or Fathima Bakery. “Thom’s Bakery!” you’ll say if you’re from the Cantonment area.
I get into the Christmas spirit from the first week of December itself.
Cards for my friends from school are already done. I have been nagging my mom to come with me to bring home a lovely cardboard star to put in the balcony. How else will Santa know that I’m waiting for him?
December was the best month even when I was a school girl. It’s the time to lie to Santa that you’ve been a good girl and also for the notorious game called Secret Santa. I went to a girls’ school. The internal rivalries and jealousies came out in full colour during this game.
The first hurdle was making the chits and getting everyone to pick one without cheating. Then came the part when we quietly exchanged them so we got the names of girls we were on good terms with.
Then the politics that almost always ended with two or three girls crying and calling it unfair. So, we made new chits, picked them and traded them again till everyone was happy with their Christmas child. There was a year when we picked chits almost five times!
The Cake Show is another event every Bengalurean associates with December. My earliest memory is of awkwardly posing in front of the “Titanic” cake. Back then, my father always came with his Minolta Camera.
My mother insisted he take pictures of me in front of each cake model. But he would end up taking a photo of the crowd in front of the cake. To my mother’s utter dismay, I would be in a corner of the photograph visible only to her. I gradually lost interest in the cake show and went to Sweet Chariot to eat cake instead. I had decided that cake is always better to eat than to see.
This year, Bengaluru has a different kind of show. There’s a Great Barrier Reek in SJP Road, Doesn’tMatterhorn just around the curve to my street and the Valley of Leftovers along the Jyothi Nivas College compound wall. All made of real garbage! The nasty smell doesn’t help in drawing crowds though.
I’m planning to take my DSLR along and take a few snaps, so that I can show off on Facebook that I’m a responsible citizen.
Anyway, in the true spirit of Christmas – of sharing and caring – I’m planning to lead some cows from Doesn’tMatterhorn to Valley of Leftovers as there isn’t enough food for all the 40-odd cows to graze on here. Well, Feliz Navidad…ooooo… (imagine me singing that in soprano) and a Happy New Year!