The Last Christmas

Merry Boxing Day to y’all. Or better still, Merry leftover Christmas to the poor. I love this time of the year, you see? In fact, I’m fond of every festival that offers delicious yet free food. Nevertheless, as one can guess, I’m going to be harsh from this point onwards. I waited nearly a week for Diwali bash(ing) but since I realize that my blog has got only a handful of unfortunate followers (thanks to my reluctance to unabashedly promote the way everyone is supposed to), there is no point in waiting to hurt people’s sentiments.

I abhor most practices associated with religion. It has more to do with my DNA than my parents’ as they are very God-fearing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t admire the festivity and the colorful decorations and whatnot. But then there is always something hidden behind religion that ain’t an expert with the concept of camouflage. Christmas too has its fallacious side.

"Maybe I’ll have to resurrect once again just to remind you idiots that it's not my birthday!" - Jesus Christ

We celebrate it as Jesus Christ’s birthday despite being fully aware that he wasn’t born on December 25^th. He was a superb fella who had issues with his Father and all but that doesn’t mean we should distort his very date of birth. To add to his eternal woes, we haven’t tried hard enough to rectify this error. Accordingly, we should have been a little more sensitive and traced the exact night he was born.

The travelogues of the Three Wise Men who were on Maggi diet during their arduous travel could have helped. After all, we celebrate Buddha and Muhammad’s birthday every single year using lunar year calendar. So why befuddle ourselves with Georgian calendar and carry on this historical travesty?

One other aspect regarding Christ’s race bothers me. He was a brown-eyed, dark-haired Jew. There is no ambiguity in this reality. But thanks to Charlemagne and the eventual patenting of Christianity by ‘whites’, Christ miraculously turned into a blonde supermodel with blue eyes, golden-hair and an awe-inspiring set of abs. Would he be any less of a prophet (or God or whatever it is we look up to him for) were he a brunette?

Even the nativity scenes replicated by us during yuletide exhibit critical geographical and climatic flaws. We depict snowfalls in them when we know that Bethlehem had as much chance of a snowfall as Mumbai does. And it doesn’t stop there. We have this infatuation with the so-called Xmas tree when it has hardly anything to do with Jesus and his neighborhood. Those trees became a part of Christmas folklore way late into the 15^th century or so in Eastern Europe.

Recently, Pope got all worked up and reminded Christendom the importance of inculcating deeper religious values instead of celebratory ones. He was slyly attacking Santa Claus I guess. After all, kids (and adults alike) seem so thrilled to greet that obese character from Finland who is hell bent on promoting Coca-Cola even today after decades of slipping through charred chimneys. I adore his reindeers though. Since my childhood days, all I’ve ever requested him to do is gracefully hand me over his mode of transport. Naturally, I haven’t heard from him yet. Either he doesn’t exist or he loves his reindeers way too much.

Coming back to where I started, I can’t make a difference nor do I wish to when religion is involved. But we’ve got to understand that almost all faith-based ideologies are replete with myths, lies, tales and unsubstantial claims. Unless and until we don’t realize this, there will always be a wall of discontent and intolerance between folks belonging to different religion and sects.

In any case, what’s the harm in creating fancy stories and fake snowfall? As long as humankind is kind enough to be happy and not baying for each other’s blood, we should be celebrating whatever comes up on the calendar even if the date is grossly mistaken.

One more thing. I don’t mean to be a doomsdayist but if the Mayans were right, this could well had been our last Christmas ever!

Diwali is Jack's utter lack of darkness but noise

The smoke has settled. The noise is dead too. By this, I mean nobody is bursting firecrackers nor feeling jubilant about not getting burned in the process. All in all, Diwali is no more. At least for now. Just two nights ago, I wished folks in my neighborhood took a break and while they were at it, donated their ammunition of firecrackers to Army or something.

Yeah, I must be sounding like a party pooper here with an anti-festival stand but that’s only half of the truth. What I am versus are these morons who sadly belong to the very same species I come from. Now that’s not to surmise that I’m wise et al but considering the present situation, I won’t give into invisible peer pressure and create unnecessary din.

Early Stone Age men who discovered fire must have been Hindus. Perhaps that could have explained our infatuation with firecrackers. Or maybe not. Anyway, show me one person who enjoys the noise these firecrackers produce. Just one person. You can’t, can you? Well, those who fired crackers are the only ones who derive sadistic pleasure from them while the bystanders’ eardrums wish the commotion end as quickly as possible. This is the other half of the truth I was referring to earlier. The government has already levied a noise curfew but not everyone adheres to it and to top that, the power-that-be hardly reacts to such disobedience.

You see, it’s quite interesting to note that Diwali is a festival of lights, not chemicals. I’m pretty sure no one exploded loud irritating bangers when Lord Rama returned to Ayodhya crooning ♫ ♪I’m coming Ommmmmmmm♫ ♪ a la Ozzy Osbourne! But what we witness today is a chaotic aberration of how things should have been but are somehow distorted by overt commercialization of an event. Correct me if I’m wrong but Diwali should be more of diyas, sweets, lanterns, rangolis, social gatherings and noiseless-firecrackers-bursting-in-the-sky, if you will. But that obviously ain’t the case.

Though it’s not specifically a Hindu festival, so to speak, considering the fact that Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs celebrate it too according to their assorted legends, the diyas are nonetheless missing in numbers in urban India. Diwali has become an Indian festival celebrated with made-in-China lanterns. Blame it on globalization. Of course, everyone have their own way of celebrating as well as celeberating and one can’t superimpose their beliefs on others. End of argument.

I love Diwali too as millions out there do. Especially when I’m not wondering how Sri Lankans feel about this hyped festival of ours. My mind may not comply with religious byproducts but my tongue holds nothing against delicious festive food. I have a soft corner in my mouth for sweets. My decaying sweet teeth can vouch for that! But you get sick of sweets after a while. This is how it works – you crave Diwali sweets; you devour 'em; you get bored; you run out of 'me; and then you miss 'em. Tada. Diwali has ended. You know the drill.

I also like to see my house spick and span though (unlike my amma) I resent the painstaking procedure called cleaning. Just to put things into better perspective, the reason why I hate firecrackers so much is I can’t possibly make more noise than they do. And for the record, in an internet-less parallel universe, each one of us must be busy participating in criminal activities like bursting firecrackers be it Diwali or not.