Annus Mirabilis

The southern lights of my city blink their silent tune to every resident passing by. The last of invites just made their way across the world, to the ends of the northern lights. I flow in their flow, adrenaline rushing through my arteries and filling my eyes. I morph into one of their own. I flow with their madness to touch consecrated snows of different times.

It’ll be a concurrence of all the winds blowing around the world. We’ll be looked after the glowing branches of pines singing the seasonal melody to each other. It will be a beautiful chorus, we shall paint it on the night sky, borrowing the shooting stars’ lights.
The blurs won’t matter, they’ll soon fade and leave a pulsating, dull chill in their demise.

It’ll spread like a wonderful virus through our cells. They’ll greet a covetous greeting to each other. The star shaped cells will join in the amelioration, and add to the festivities. They’ll invite the sidereal memories to shake their absence loose, and lose them to the brewing combination of universal magic.

Come, they shall, in a somber, strange sort of pain. The one you feel slowly as numbness spreading from limb to limb till your whole body is abuzz to the soul. They’ve known little of these nights, and so they wander, finally turn into the cosmogyral spectators we admire often on dusks before they’re knocked over by inky darkness.
Why, the whole ethos felt nothing less than jumping into the last drop of maple and coming up in the bubbles of pinging nectar we’d never known existed in this ancient backyard.

Such sweet azureness bothers the consciousness, that points out the possible mirages that the mind unravels in the most unexpected of times. But who pays heed to the policing done in middle of chimerical anarchy? This is where imagination seeks newer sanctuaries, these are the treasures of our lost jewels to a beautiful casket of time. Newer beginnings will smile their approbations on anchors deeper than the heart’s emotions. They’ll lift them up and over, away and abound, banished to peripheries, guarded by rays of hope with promises of no returns. The returnings will be of our own wills. They’ll mark the impending mendings that never quite happened. They shall push the snowball down the hill to us, rolling.

I see it now, as it comes down with a gigantic swoop.

Start the countdown.

It’s a new beginning.

Christmas; We Belong Together

Lights, lights all around.

The cold doesn’t seem to bother the festive spirit of some people. I see people hustling in pairs and groups, late at night or in the shadow of the sun to whatever place they’re going. It’s said that religion and festivals are inseparable, but I think that there’s more to festivals than just a story with a moral behind it. Festivals reflect gathering, oneness, bonhomie and an excuse to believe in good. To restore one’s faith that- Yes, good is out there. Good will always be out there. A rush of cold wind should not obscure our already mundane, dampened old lives. Hence, festivals. And festivals not only bring together people, they bring together an opportunity to treat our taste buds to various dishes and a manifestation of culinary arts.
When I think of Christmas, I think of Christmas crackers, the color red and food. Good food.

Worldwide, Christmas is celebrating in various ways. Though I yet have to experience a real Christmas celebration. Most of my impression comes from what I’ve seen in the movies Home Alone and others.

There are Santons in France, emerging from the area of Provence. Santons are little hand painted terracotta figurines that often reflect the common people in their daily lives. They are used for decorations along with a Nativity crib. On the eve of Christmas, there is a Church Service that’s followed all around the world.
In France, The Reveillon, a grand feast follows the Church Service. Roast turkey with chestnuts or roast goose, oysters, foie gras, lobster, venison and cheeses. For dessert, a chocolate sponge cake log called a buche de Noel is normally eaten. Pardon my aigus and graves.

I’ve heard a lot about the Wishbone Tradition in America. Even though it’s done during the Thanksgiving dinner, I thought why not just put something here extra to know about. I’ve heard about the Rockfeller Center in New York, where there is a huge Christmas tree with ice skating ring over Christmas and New Year.

“In the Southwest USA, there are some special customs which have some similarities to those in parts of Mexico. These include ‘luminarias’ or ‘farolitos’ which are paper sacks partly filled with sand and then have a candle put in them. They are lit on Christmas Eve and are put the edges of paths. They represent ‘lighting the way’ for somewhere for Mary and Joseph to stay.”

Greenland, a place where the festival is celebrated with ardent fashion. Here, the number of traditions, forms of celebrations are endless. Surprising for a country of snow eh? Men there wear the white anoraks which are worn on special occasions for Christmas Church Services. In the small villages, people hold Christmas gatherings in their homes, exchanging gifts, drinking coffee, eating cakes.
They don’t have trees there, them Greenland people. I know, we’ve heard about the irony many a times. So, they ship over the Christmas trees there. They are laden with candles, bright ornaments and sometimes small versions of sealskin breeches known as kamiks. Another fact I came across while reading up on Greenland one day is that- because Greenland is so far north, and within the Arctic Circle, during the winter the sun never rises. (You might get a brief glimpse over the southern mountains, but that’s it!) So the stars help to bring some light. 

And of course, India. Our humongous, “secular” nation. We have everyone here. Hindus, Muslims, and “phoreners” too. Christians make up a significant amount of the population in India, with about 25 million Chrisitians residing in the world’s largest democracy, most of them concentrated in the southern region.
Goa, Mumbai and the southern states boast of a large number of Roman Catholics. Most Christians in Goa are Catholics. Churches in India are decorated with Poinsettia flowers and candles for the Christmas Eve Midnight Mass service. People like to go carol singing around their neighbors for about a week before Christmas.
In South West India, in the state of Kerala, traditional Catholics fast, not eating from 1st to 24th of December until the midnight service every night. Every house will be decorated with a Christmas star. Christians often put small oil burning clay lamps on the flat roofs of their homes to show their neighbors that Jesus is the light of the world.

See how one name, one belief brings together people from all over the world to celebrate a festival. With each person having a different version of the festival in his/her mind, celebrating it in a different manner, some putting stars on their windows on nights, while some getting drunk on nostalgia and reciting christmas stories to their children. All this while, unknowing of their presence in the great big world yet aesthetically celebrating for one cause, in their own special ways. Not caring about being antiscians and believing in one thing. Having good faith, and renewing it. Wishing for a better tomorrow, asking for strength to get through another day, another year.

While some pray, rather than beg on this day, for a warm plate of something to appease their ravaging stomachs. A smile could have a million reasons, but even a million actions couldn’t lead to one smile. For some, a new pair of shoes to cover their frostbitten feet, a warm sweater for their offspring is enough.

If we can have one occasion, one excuse to lay our arms bare and instead link them, being one and whole, then what’s stopping us from promoting it? Only ourselves. I believe in meliorism.

A very Merry Christmas to you.

I’m thinking of a celebration that never existed,
A colourplay of light so exquisite,
All the goodness of the world bursting from between the leaves.
The sun takes a leap, dances with the beams
The moon, a solitary loon.
Graces the land with its flight
The aura of bonhomie remains hung up in the air
So infectious, even the shadows choose to play to a rhythm of their own
A rush of air fills my chest, a slight warmth that spreads everywhere
A million may come, a million may go
With the skies above dusting its gold
On the bolstered silver linings of every soul