The end of another year is approaching, just after the biggest holiday occasion in the world – Christmas. And I am home to meet family and friends yet again. Sorry about the earlier posts, I haven’t got time to actually think what I would write about. I have been discussing worldly matters with a patriotic friend of mine and realized he knew more about our country then its leaders! Now I have some time to reflect upon Christmas and all those good times we had. Studying at what we lovingly term a convent school, I grew up with respect for the festivities of Christianity. Almost all my school friends are Christians, and enjoyed preparing for the festivities with them. I can’t believe I was once actually part of the school choir, but they wisely threw me out as the big season approached. That closed down my stage act, but we were active backstage, I guess.
Christmas was always the busiest time for my friend Jacob Verghese, considered by many to be one of the finest actors of our school, right upto our 10th grade. Every year, we would have the greatest play of them all, the birth of Christ and meaning of Christmas. And every year , the lead role of playing Joseph, husband of Virgin Mary, always went to Jacob. He had a nice baritone, and that coupled with his British accent and looks won him the role. He still jokes at how he played Joseph three times in a row, on three consecutive years, with a different co-actor to play his wife! Most of the time, they would paste a foolish looking dusty brown moustache under his nose! We couldn’t help laughing noticing it. The dialogues were pretty much the same, the scale and songs changed. Jacob would start missing classes upto two weeks before Christmas, for practice playing his role. All the remaining ones had no demand. Once, I was picked to play a villager.
Then the best part of the whole day would come, the Crib competition! We were supposed to build a crib depicting the birth of Christ, complete with the hay and star. This was where our primary supplier of props came in – Ajith Joy Manjaly. His home was conveniently close to our school, and for some reason, he always had spare hay lying around! This would be our background. We would also borrow his Chrib set- Small statues of all the characters for the manger shot. Then we had the Christmas star, and the hanging angel….mmm.. What was missing ? Ah, the Christmas tree. There always had to be a Tree, remember, it was a Crib competition ! And the marks would not come in without the tree. We don’t have pine trees in our part of the world. So anything green and leafy and capable of standing on its own counted as a tree. Once we broke off one of the branches from the adjacent convent itself! And would have got away with it, but someone noticed the broken stub on the tree.
Everyone loved the part were we put together the crib. It was fun to find the laziest boys running around for chores to win the event. I think at one instance we even borrowed/stole hay. All the cards would come out and it would decorate the Christmas tree. In order to show the sandy grounds of the time, we would scoop out sand from the playground in buckets and deposit them on the school floor. This would happen behind the closed door, because we did not want our ideas to leak out, or rather, our lack of ideas. Everyone would be doing the same thing, yet somehow wished to outdo the others and win the prize – (a bag of chocolates, or a plum cake on another instance). This was the Christmas spirit at work, bringing everyone together.
Outside, we would have other programs on full swing. The above mentioned skit, dance, choirs ,choirs and some more choirs. The santa would come in jingling all the way. Usually the biggest and plumpest kid is chosen to play santa claus, but lately I have been hearing things that the waistline of santa at school was decreasing. Maybe the teachers want to emphasize being in shape. Santa would give out gifts to the best kids in school, who were chosen through a lucky draw. I have won on some occasions : a mini phone book, a box of candles and wafer bars.
And then the curtains would come down grandly. Confetti in the air, more songs in the background, and judges would come in to allot marks to our cribs. Marks were given for arrangement, mood, color…god knows how many more parameters. The key to winning was to be one of the first to show their design. Cause the judges would only compare every other crib with what they already had tagged as best !! The last ones to present normally would not make it.
But suddenly winning and losing would no longer matter. Everyone was good in their own way , and of course everyone could not win. We would give each other Christmas cards and share the little cake and chocolates that come our way. Jacob would be there to see the crib coming part, after he has removed his stupid fake moustache.
After school , our Christmas escapades would be to catch a movie together, one of the many Malayalam grouse movies brought out for the season. There have been instances were we have watched the worse movies of the year for Christmas. Simply because we could not get tickets for the good ones. We enjoyed hooting and laughing at the acts on scree, and always hated the colorful songs. Lately, we have begun meeting up at bars and hotels in the town (city ?). Its the perfect time to pour out our grievesa and toast to a better tomorrow. This Christmas,I plan to meet a lot of such long lost friends.
MErry Christmas ! God bless you !
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