Malabar musings

In Malabar, Christmas celebrations are largely limited to churches and the surrounding area. However, children in my neighbourhood would never miss the opportunity to make the most of school holidays. As for them, well, the spirit of Christmas belongs to everyone. The fusion of faith comes quite naturally to children’s unalloyed minds.

On Christmas eve, they organise into small groups and visit homes in the locality to sing carols. The oldest among them would masquerade as Santa, and others with red Christmas caps would sing the carols. Drumbeats after nightfall would announce their arrival. As most households would generously join in, this was an opportunity for children to earn small amounts of pocket money. However, some disapproved because sometimes more than one invading team would visit the same house, and the children also came with little practice or rehearsal.

It was yet another Christmas night. I stood on my balcony, enjoying the cheer and chill of the season. I could hear the drumbeat in the distance. I saw my neighbour, a retired senior bureaucrat, picking up his stick and precariously walking towards the front gate. The adorable gentleman is a perfectionist in life. Despite losing his wife early, he brought up his two children well. His married daughter now lives in North India. When the younger son hesitated to leave for Europe to take up an assignment, he said he was fit enough to look after himself and did not want to clip the wings of his children.

To my astonishment, the elderly man opens the gate, comes back, and switches on the gate lights. In the past, when he heard the drumbeat, he would rush to the gate, lock it, then come back and shut his front door. He would then turn off the lights on the veranda to darken it so that the unruly children would not trespass, thinking no one was at home. Standing alone on the balcony, I see little carolers coming in through the open gate. Unlike me, they are not surprised at all to see the gate ajar this time around. Perhaps this particular group is different from last year’s or is still more probable, and children don’t carry
unpleasant residues of the past with them.

They beat the drum hard and sang aloud, breaking the silence that had long incubated the large compound. The Papa gives a fistful of candy to the elderly man. He comes down the steps to join them in the front yard. He taps his feet and lifts his walking stick in the air. He hands out cash to each one, and the happy band of children moves on to the next house.

Night deepens. Drumbeats now echo from the far end of the street. The gentleman’s gate is still kept open, and the gate lights and shadows draw engrossing designs around the foliage. Perhaps he expects more children to come in. Or is he lost in thoughts, in his Christmas musings?