A Delhi Christmas Carol
Something I wrote last year (2014), while spending Christmas in Delhi
A few people in India celebrate Christmas by wearing creepy Santa masks.
Everyone else goes to the mall, all dressed up in bright colors, bangles, sparkles, shiny hair.
Eager to observe local tradition, we went to the mall on Christmas day and got stuck in the crowd and had an overpriced pretzel at Auntie Anne’s. Then we walked to an outdoor market as the sun was going down and drank some Nescafe and had some interesting interactions with beggars and a Hare Krishna guy.
We sang Christmas carols on the sidewalk, to passersby and to the motorcyclists without helmets, and then we returned to our nearly empty apartment with pink and yellow walls and cold marble floors. I made Hungarian food with spicy red Kashmiri pepper and yogurt instead of sour cream. Micah went down the street and bought a little artificial tree. We wrapped the gifts we’d bought each other that evening at a book stall using shiny gold and silver paper and clear tape with no dispenser.
In many ways, it was a relief to be away from some of the excesses that come with an American Christmas — the consumerism, the sentimental TV shows (my favorite is A Christmas Story), the ten pound holiday season weight gain, the various pressures — but it was weird to be away from home.
Whatever home is. Or was. Or will be.
Speaking of which, I was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past.
The Ghost of Christmas Past is Buddhist, by the way. Dickens didn’t realize.
Because the Ghost of Christmas Past takes you to a window — I think he is wearing a creepy Santa mask (kindly ignore the inconsistency; a little willing suspicion of disbelief here) — and it’s a little steamy, and he wipes a circle in it with his white glove, and you look out of it, and you see rectangles of snowy yards, and crumpled up wrapping paper, and your new Barbie Dolls who got punk haircuts a few weeks later, and your grandma’s quilts and sweatshirts with unicorns painted on them, and your uncles cooking biscuits and drinking Mountain Dew, and your other uncles talking schemes and conspiracy theories over Folger’s instant crystals, and, depending on your family, maybe a fight or two in the middle of the street, and maybe a circle of friends and some cookies, and all the people who have died, and all the people who have moved away, and all the people you really loved once that you no longer talk to and only see electronically when their posts show up on your Facebook news feed.
It’s an irony, really, that the Ghost of Christmas Past is highlighting a problem — universal and timeless — that happens to be intensified by the modern world, by globalism, by feelings of rootlessness, by instant coffee, by technology.
The problem is Impermanence.
The Ghost of Christmas Past in a creepy Santa mask whispers to our bones — especially when it is so cold that you wear a stocking cap to bed — that everything is impermanent, that everything that exists today — that is held together by the tendons of being — will be torn asunder tomorrow.
And this is where we part ways with Dickens, because this particular Ghost of Christmas Past is not trying to make you feel guilty at all for being a nasty old curmudgeon. He is simply trying to show you the impermanence of things so that you will no longer cling to existence.
Because whether you are empty or full, you suffer. When you are full, you fear days of loss and emptiness; and when you are empty, you remember days of fullness, and you are bitter.
Which brings me to the Ghost of Christmas Present, who is a western tourist with dreadlocks who wears pants with the crotch down to his ankles.
He smokes weed and talks about Karma.
Today you are experiencing the Karmic repercussions of lives you lived in the past, he tells you. So light a candle and smoke some pot.
Some of you are being fruitful and multiplying. You are surrounded by friends and family, the voices of children. You are oaks of righteousness. You are tripping over Legos, stepping on pine needles, baking cookies for your coworkers. You are utterly exhausted. You are putting coins in the Red Salvation Army Jar of Life.
Others of you are languishing, scattering, grieving, living close to the mystery of death. You are the recipients of the contents of the Salvation Army Jar. You eat the crumbs that fall from the children’s table.
Some — like me — are beginning again — building a new life–maybe alone–maybe (like me) with someone you love–and your new life is a tiny green shoot, fragile and small, with the potential of becoming a mighty oak of righteousness (with its attendant Legos and exhaustion).
But none of it really matters ultimately, because of Impermanence, and your goal is to escape the tyranny of Karma. So light more candles and smoke more pot. (I personally do not recommend ingesting it in brownie form.)
Now that we’ve settled that, I bet you’re wondering: Who is the Ghost of Christmas Future in this Expat Christmas Carol? Well, I’ll tell you who it isn’t. It isn’t Narendra Modi.
It’s me.
I am not even kidding right now.
The point is this: I bring you tidings of Great Joy, which shall be to All People: the empty, the full, the loved, the unloved, the rich, the poor, the good, and the bad; those with or without dreadlocks; the sick and the healthy; the lucky and the unlucky; those who step on Legos and those who do not.
All are invited to participate in the story: to sing with the angels; to adore with the shepherds; to brings gifts with the magi; to say “Yes!” to God with Mary and Joseph; to see God at work in the world and in your life.
Or, if you are not ready for all of this, or if you just can’t see it, you can wait in the darkness — in the crevasse between the Old and New Testaments — until you see the star climb up the dark sky and rest above the manger.
For unto us is born a Savior, Christ the Lord, and all are invited to worship Him. Come in your sorrow and in your joy. Come as you are, in the clothes you have on, sparkly or no. Come with your doubts, your fears, your inadequacies, your failures. Come with your emptiness and your fullness. Come with your losses and disappointments. Come with your sinfulness. Come with your guilt and shame. Come with your bitterness and blame. Come with all your mundane worries and concerns. Come with your feeling that all is not as it should be. Come with or without your creepy Santa mask. You can even wear harem pants if you want to. Come with your despair and gloom, and let the light of God shine on you.
“Arise, shine, for your light has come; and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”
For those who feel the creeping cold breath of the Ghost of Christmas Past, remember the words of Jesus: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
