Season's Greetings

When you are away from home, it is during the festivals that you miss your family the most. The clamour in the kitchen with gastronomical aromas wafting through the air. The ununsed audio cassette player crackling alive with divine chants of mantras in MS Subbalaxmi's voice. Dad driving mom up the wall telling her that the pooja is getting delayed because she is slow. DJ lurking in the background trying to be unobtrusive and just waiting to sink his teeth into the savouries. And usually I can be anywhere in the spectrum of over-enthusiastic participant and mom's right hand woman to a lazy lump waiting for the rituals to get over.

My parents embraced the festivals of Maharashtra wholeheartedly, like the ten day Ganesh festival. We celebrate it with the traditional Marathi Aarti every evening and Usha Mangeshkar's Ganesh Bhajans. Fortunately for me, the last day I spent in India this year was Anant Chaturdashi, the day Ganesha returns to his abode. Dassera was lowkey and almost invisible : only the pictures of Durga in mail postcards to remind us that there exists such a festival. As Diwali approached, we Indians were more determined to stamp our Indianness all over York. The Indian community here got the ball rolling while, we back in office were harbingers of the festivities to commence: distributing sweets and savouries. It was heartening to see the Brits interested in our culture and rituals. I am usually very apprehensive about community celebrations, but when I reached the York College hall I was amazed to such a massive turnout. The prayer service which was more stylised to suit the British audience and to sensitize them towards our religion and heritage was very patchy, the Om Jai Jagadish hymn was improvised because the singer did not know the lyrics or the tune for that matter. But despite these glitches the essence of the celebration was not completely lost, simply because an air of communal harmony and camaraderie floated around. The British let their hair down for the Dandiya, Garba and Bhangra. Surprisingly, Diwali coincided with the Bonfire week and we witnessed fireworks all round the week which indeed gave us a taste of India.

Christmas preparations began a month in advance, with the windows being dressed with the bright red, green and white theme, lights and bauble dotting the streets and and insane crowd hitting the shops for presents. The warmth and spirit of the festival rubbed off on me too. I would karaoke with the carols and Christmas numbers that I knew as a kid. The office was agog with shouts of Merry Christmas instead of the usual 'cheers' and 'morning's and the desks were laden with mouth watering chocolates and goodies. It was a long weekend and I found my way to the York Minster on the 25th to partake in the festivities. As I lit the candle and prayed along with the Christian family standing next to me, I felt that there is a single message of familial unity that pervades through festivals all over the world.

As I walked home from the bus-stop last night for the last time this year, I met a frail old man who stopped me and said 'Happy New Year and you promise to be a good girl'. I was so touched by that elderly gentleman I had never seen before that I thought he was Father Christmas without his 'Ho Ho Ho'. It did not matter to me anymore that I will see sun rise on 2006 without cozying up with dad on the couch watching a football match!