Christmastime in Kerala

Christmastime in Kerala:

In the midst of a tropical rainforest—with over 70-degree (Fahrenheit) temperature daily—, in the midst of a predominantly Hindu population, with palm trees instead of evergreen trees, and most glaringly with none of my family around to spend this time with, I found it a challenge to get into the holiday spirit. Though this environment didn’t exactly evoke the same festive feelings as my environs in Indiana (every year without fail a white Christmas, all the hype surrounding the holiday seasons, decorating the family Christmas tree and Christmas carols playing constantly in the background), this was certainly the most memorable and out-of-the-ordinary holiday season ever.

I’ve mentioned that there is a surprisingly significant Christian population across the state of Kerala. As you might imagine, the Christians of Kerala celebrate Christmas quite differently than its observed in the U.S. For lack of evergreen trees, some families decorate different types of tropical trees: there is a Kerala-style Christmas tree set up outside the office building here at VKV—a bamboo-like bush decked out with lights, metallic garland, and colorful cardboard stars.

The cardboard “Christmas stars” are certainly the most common holiday décor around Aranmula. Some of them sport slogans like “Happy Christmas”, others are printed with patterns I associate with Christmas and some of them are filled with flashing colored lights, but the most of them don’t appear—to me at least—to have the least bit to do with Christmas. Regardless, they are rather festive. These stars are being sold in shops everywhere this week, and to help add some (more palatable) color to my pastel green and brown room, I bought a blue and yellow holiday star decorated with stylized butterflies. This is now hanging in the midst of my posters of Sarasvati (Hinduism’s patroness of the arts and learning, my favorite member of the Hindu pantheon), Vishnu (the preserver), and Gandhi-ji.

As for what traditions the Indian Christians of Kerala have around this time, I don't rightly know because the community I'm living in is mostly Hindu and I haven't yet met any Christians. But every bakery--even the Hindu-owned establishments--is filled with special Christmas cake, which is eaten by Hindu and Christians alike. Almost every home in the area has a little decor in the form of giant elaborately-decorated "Christmas star." Some houses have strings of flashing lights hung out front. For the past week, Aranmula has been serenaded every night by a traveling troupe of high school guys singing and drumming down every block in town until at least midnight. During the course of the week, they stop in front of every home with their drums and voices booming until the family inside gives them some rupees to go away or until the boys are fed up by a lack of response. And on Christmas eve, I'll be attending late-night mass at a local Catholic church, not out of any devoutness on my part but more so curiosity to see what an Indian Christmas eve mass is like. Then on the evening of the 25th, the school staff will be preparing a special Christmas feast for us. A lovely and certainly for me a unique holiday!

Around 11 PM on Christmas Eve’s eve, the traveling percussion troupe passed by Tharayil. I, who was watching a movie at the time and who was thoroughly amused by this curious collection of carolers, made the mistake of opening the door to get a better view. After they saw that brief sliver of light flash from our doorway, the drummer boys swarmed past our gates and stood outside the house making a delightful racket for the next 5 minutes. Delightful depending on your outlook: Sarah, an elderly woman from London and a relatively new resident of Tharayil house (she would undoubtedly take the roll of Scrooge in our Kerala Christmas Carol), attempted to drown out the drumbeats with her complaints. I was tempted to go give the group of guys some rupees—I’ve heard that they oftentimes don’t go away until someone inside the house they choose to serenade gives them a bit of cash—but Sarah and Rosella held me back, certain that the troupe would surely return to Tharayil every night that week if I did. So we all stayed inside, I enjoying the pulse of the rhythm and the cadence of the off-key chanting, Sarah obviously not, until the boys became bored by our secluded stinginess and moved on to the next house on the block.


Kathakali Christmas Story:

One afternoon, the rhythm of drums fused with the clang of bells and gongs drew me to the school building, where a Kathakali play was being rehearsed. I peeked inside the makeshift theater and was invited to sit and spectate, becoming the only female and only student among the crowd. Gathered on stage was a motley posse of sweaty, shirtless, dhoti-clad Hindu guys. Acting out the story of the birth of Christ. This was, supposedly, the first-ever Kathakali play based on a bible story. And a few days later, I was in the audience of its debut performance.

The evening of the debut turned out to be quite a big event. It was held, contrary to original plans (initially scheduled to take place in some far-away resort that was asking an exorbitant price 3710 rupees per person—close to $100—for tickets, the debut was, after some arm-twisting and use of influential contacts on Louba’s part) right in the school building at VKV, where I’d seen the same play rehearsed a few days before.
Before the performance began (it was scheduled to start at 6:00, but 6:00 Indian time really means at least a half hour later), made my way through a swarm of journalists and television crews to watch the makeup application and costuming progress. A husky Hindu guy with hairy hands and a unibrow was being transformed into the Virgin Mary. Joseph’s face was bright yellow. This Biblical couple was decked out like a pair of Hindu deities and laden with layers of elaborate Indian-style golden jewels. Two of the three kings and King Herod were done up like a typical Kathakali hero: with green faces and broad, umbrella-like skirts. As I watched these preparations with interest and amusement, I was laughing inside to think: what would be the reaction of a provincial-minded conservative Christian taken from their cocoon in Indiana (or elsewhere) to see this Kathakali performance in India and told that this posse of Hindu men were supposed to be portraying Biblical characters surrounding the birth of Christ?

So at 6:00 India time, I took a seat on a straw mat just in front of the stage. The program was preceded by, as are most Kathakali performances, by a synopsis of sorts chanted in Sanskrit (this New Testament story was actually translated into literal Malayalam, which is similar to Sanskrit) to the accompaniment of a quartet of percussionists. The official curtain, a colorful tapestry held overhead on either end by men whose arms would begin to droop after a few minutes, was tossed aside to reveal Mary and Joseph. The unlikely man cast as the Holy Virgin that I described earlier made a magnificent Madonna. Between his soft features and feminine expressions (and an impressive make up job) the guy was a natural.

This interpretation of the story of Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus—costumes and chanting aside—progressed pretty much along the lines of your standard Christmas pageant. Until King Herod came on the scene and started grunting as he danced around wielding a sword. The Kathakali Christmas story culminated in the nativity scene, with all the actors (apart from Herod) gathered around to admire the Christ child as a baby doll dressed in swaddling clothes.

Hands down the best rendition of the story of Christmas I’ve ever seen. Somehow, these Hindu men—with their wonderfully outlandish and thoroughly Indian costumes (that any conservative Christian would have been horrified to see used to portray any Bible character), Mary with his/her hairy hands and this classic New Testament tale translated into Sanskrit—imparted more meaning into this story than all the habitually disastrous Christmas pageants I’ve seen in the U.S.

Christmas Eve Dinner:

For the first weekend since my arrival in Aranmula, I decided to stay at the center. So did all the other students. That way, this global family of sorts could spend Christmas together. Throughout the week leading up to the Christmas weekend, conversations among the students—breakfast, lunch and dinner—would tend to center around what each member of our mini international community would typically do around this time of year in their home country. Whether from Germany or Sweden, Spain or Italy, the Czech Republic, England or the U.S.A., everyone was missing their holiday family dinner.

So as the weekend of the 25th approached, we (well, mostly through the efforts of Brit from Sweden, being a take-charge type of woman) began to put together some special plans: Christmas Eve dinner. Around Aranmula, away from home and family, at the nearby (dubiously) respectable establishment of the Park Hotel. We made reservations for a “family room” in advance and arranged for 3 rickshaws to take the 9 of us there in the evening of The Eve. Earlier on The Eve, Andy, a man from Seattle, arrived and despite being Jewish we insisted he join us for Christmas dinner. This extra person meant that I ended up in the lucky rickshaw in which the 4 most slender among the students had to cram in back. On the way to the Park Hotel, I was tempted to strike up a round of “Jingle Bells” with words changed to suit the India surroundings: something like “Rickshaw Horns…”

We climbed out of the fleet of rickshaws and were led through the other rooms of the hotel (which was, as we had speculated, a glorified bar) to the “family room” (which every night of the year is most likely filled with parties of drunk Indian men—I doubt any woman had entered the establishment after 5 PM in a good while). By 7:30, we handed our server our order in written form, to facilitate the process and avoid confusion. Between then and the time our food finally came at 9:30 (I expected this would be the case—I’ve adjusted my internal clock to Indian time—and was much more amused by this delay than a certain Scrooge who went at one point to yell at the servers and was subsequently told that the food would be ready at 11:00), we passed the time by chatting and singing Christmas carols and—at one point when we were becoming desperately hungry for our dinner—playing a couple rounds of charades.

So, at last, once the food was carried in and the plates of curry and tandoori and masala and rice and naan (North Indian flat bread) were passed around, the savory smell of Indian spices filling the “family room,” this Christmas dinner with an Indian twist tasted exquisite. At my end of the table, we were sharing curry prawns, tandoori chicken, garlic gobi (gobi is comparable to cauliflower) and paneer (Indian cheese) and, no offence to the excellent chef who does most of the cooking around the holidays back home (I do miss your cooking, Dad), I think this was the most delicious Christmas dinner I’ve ever had. Between the banquet of incredible Indian food, the company of international travelers, the sultry Keralan weather and the groups of Indian guys getting drunk outside our “family room”, this was certainly for me the most extraordinary Christmas Eve ever.

Christmas Eve Mass:

Not out of any devoutness on my part but more so out of curiosity, I accompanied Rosella from Rome to the Aranmula Catholic church’s 11PM Christmas Eve mass. The two of us left the Park Hotel shortly before the others to make it to mass in time. There was no rickshaw driver waiting for us outside, as Rosella had arranged. But there were plenty of rickshaws in the parking lot. All the drivers inside drinking. So the hotel guard found the least drunk among them and dragged the guy outside for him to drive us back to the school. We made it safely from the hotel to the school, then from the school to the church. As Rosella and I followed a rugged road and blaring music up to the hilltop church, our rickshaw driver found a place to park, curled up in the back of his vehicle and fell asleep.

Outside the cozy hilltop church, Christmas carols—thoroughly Indian-style tunes that bore no resemblance to any Western Christmas songs—were blaring. Inside, there was no sign of a priest but the place was packed with people listening to the music. The congregation spilled over around the chapel’s walls while Rosella and I stood for a while along the fringes of the crowd. Listening. Observing.

I was surprised by the disparity in the proportion of men vs. women within: a postage-stamp-sized square in the far back corner of the church seemed to be reserved for men, while the rest of the interior—over 7/8ths of the space—was filled with women, who were constantly fixing their saris and shawls so their heads were covered (this seemed to be proper decorum while within the church). So where were all the husbands of these women? Out drinking, I presumed. We’d probably been amongst a few of them at the Park Hotel. I later found out from Rajesh that my presumption was probably correct: he informed me that Kerala has the highest alcohol consumption of any state in India.

Seconds after Rosella and I had gathered the courage to enter the church, as several old women sitting near the rear were beckoning us to do, everyone inside rose from the scratchy straw mats stretching across the floor that served as a substitute for pews and began to file outside. ‘Did we do something offensive?’ I wondered. No, it turned out, or at least that wasn’t why the congregation walked out as soon as we walked in. They went outside to watch the procession of the priest and altar servers carry a statue of Baby Jesus from the nativity down the hill into the church.

We stood inside, found a spot on the floor to sit for the subsequent mass, and—heralded by a fanfare of fireworks—watched as the procession and spectators flowed into the church. The Christ child in his crèche, carried by a priest in vestments of hot pink and gold, was placed in a nativity near the altar. Just below a life-size statue of Christ on the crucifix affixed to a backdrop of the apocalypse: a blood-red sunset, lightning scorching the skies, a graveyard in the distance. This image of Jesus and the statue of Virgin Mary before the altar were both encircled by strings of flashing lights.

I was taking all of this in—and fixing my dupatta (scarf worn with a churidar) so it covered my head—when the congregation rose from the floor and began singing an exquisite joy-exuding Malayalam Christmas song, to the accompaniment of an extremely tacky synthesized recording (which made the organ at my family’s church in Indiana, by comparison, sound angelic). From there, the progression of the mass followed for the most part the same general structure as a Western Catholic mass. Apart from the fact that it was all in Malayalam.

Despite the fact that I couldn’t understand anything being said apart from a word here and there, I found the mass meaningful and meditative. Surrounded by a crowd of Malayali women in this cramped, close-quartered church. Sweating while the fans overhead spun speedily so no one in the congregation passed out from the harsh heat of this Christmas Eve. Sitting, kneeling and standing on the scratchy straw mats. Facing the priest in his oh-so-spiffy vestments, Mary and Jesus in their circles of flashing colored lights in front of the mural of the apocalypse. While the synthesized song accompaniment resounded from the loud speakers. If I couldn’t be with my family for this evening, this was the next best place for me to be.

Despite the overall tackiness of these surroundings, a sense of community prevailed.About an hour into the mass (it was a bit past midnight at that point), firecrackers exploded just outside the church. This went on like machine gun fire for over a minute. My theory: to keep the congregation from falling asleep. This happened two other times before Rosella and I left, shortly before communion at 1 AM. As I was falling asleep around an hour later, I could still hear the Keralan Christmas carols being blasted from the church’s several speakers, occasionally accompanied by sporadic spurts of firecrackers. Happy holidays to everyone in India, Indiana, and everywhere in between!