'Christmas is not a foreign festival'

Editors and writers Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle have brought out 'Indian Christmas', an anthology which showcases how Christmas is truly an Indian festival.

Jerry Pinto

Madhulika Liddle

Editors and writers Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle have brought out 'Indian Christmas', an anthology of essays, images, poems and hymns — both in English and translated from India’s other languages — all of which showcase how Christmas is truly an Indian festival. In fact, some of the Christmas traditions the book covers have evolved over almost two millennia, and hearteningly, the book demonstrates how other communities have always participated in the celebration of Christmas and continue to do so in these times of division. In an interview with Rashmi Vasudeva, the two editors speak about why Christmas matters, among other things. Excerpts

How did the idea for this anthology come about?
JP: A couple of years ago I had a discussion about a book that looks at how Christmas had worked its way into the heart of India, how children on the streets of Mumbai could identify ‘Jinga Bells’ as they called Santa Claus and how at the heart of Christmas, there is a baby, a serene mother and a worried father. The family is a refugee family. They are homeless and there is no room for them at the inn. The child must lie in a manger and be warmed by the sweet breath of animals. And yet of this was born a revolution. And then Madhulika Liddle seemed the natural choice for a co-editor.

What was Christmas for you and do you think the way you celebrated shaped your persona in any significant way?
JP: Mine was a non-traditional Christmas family. We weren’t the kind of family who cooked up storms though we could eat our way through mountains of food. My father would read the Christmas story out of the gospel of St Luke and we would all be appalled at the heartlessness that would allow an innkeeper to refuse entry to a pregnant woman. There would be Christmas cake from a local shop and good food and of course, dressed in our new clothes, we would sally forth to church for service.
ML: Growing up, Christmas was for me the most exciting part of the year. I always looked forward even to the run-up to Christmas, the decorations we put up around the house, the cake, doughnuts, gujiyas and other goodies we helped make, the music, the warmth and joy. For me, that warmth, the feeling of goodwill, is the most enduring memory of Christmas festivities. I don’t think our Christmas celebrations shaped my persona in any significant way, but yes, the traditions — the food, the decorations, the carols, and more — which I picked up from my parents and other relatives back then are what continue to mould my Christmas celebrations even now.

Amidst the socio-political climate today, do you feel it is necessary to look at a festival like Christmas that transcends beyond religion more closely? Do you feel the urge sometimes to attribute higher values of goodness, kindness and fellow living to festivals like Christmas in the hope that it will seep through and soak up some of the vitriol around?
JP: I think we need to remember that we are the nation that was visited by St Thomas the Apostle and that Christianity has 2000-year-old roots here. I think we need to remember that we are a nation that welcomed the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa when he was a boy fleeing persecution. I think we need to remember that we were a nation that had never been anti-Semitic and that the Polish Jewish community still remembers Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, also known as ‘Jam Sahib', who gave asylum to 10,000 Jewish children. I think we need to remember who we could be. Will this book help to do that? I don’t know. I can only hope but Christmas is a festival of hope. I think all literature hopes to work against hate, to further the common cause of humanity. If this book contributes to that, I should be delighted.
ML: I think, besides the fact that a festival like Christmas goes beyond religion and reinforces values of peace and goodwill, there is the very fact of it being a very ‘local’ festival when it comes to how Indians celebrate it. A good deal of the vitriol and intolerance we’re seeing around us today is rooted in a mistaken impression of Christians being somehow ‘foreign’, of a religion that is a Western construct. A closer look at how we really celebrate Christmas — in so many ways so similar to (say) how Diwali is celebrated — and perhaps people might concede that Christmas too is an Indian festival. Seeing the similarities might help reduce the insularity a bit.