It was Christmas, for which they had planned for the whole year, from food to gifts to holidays to family unions to charities to illuminations…. the only festival they put their heart and soul into.
Christmas is a festival of more than two billion Christians around the world. It does seem that many people in European countries do not care for religion or religious festivals but this festival has always been part of their life, more significant in trade and commerce since it attracts millions of consumers to visit big stores for buying and bargaining.
Trade of Christmas trees, lights and gifts is a big retail industry, thus making it a huge event of buying and selling and enjoying with the family and friends. This time of year, is called a party time in Europe and US where Christmas brings fame and fortune to hotel, gift and food industry. In US, the Christmas retail sales has touched one trillion this year, considered the strongest growth since 2011. Every person in UK approximately has spent two thousand pounds on Christmas shopping which amounts to around two billion pounds this year according to rough estimates.
After about five years, I was also invited to a big Christmas party in London recently. The guests were from every community, though majority were Christians, both Protestants and Catholics. Everybody was in colourful attire and every face had a big smile.
There were Muslims from Pakistan, there were Hindus from India, there were Bengalis from Bangladesh and there were Africans and Arabs. All were rejoicing to their hearts’ content. I was in a fix and asking myself, why am I here? Do I belong to a gathering that has no whiff of what I was going through because back home nobody has celebrated Eid since decades, so how would they know about Christmas celebrations? The LOC between India and Pakistan has again heated up and people across the line have buried more soldiers. How come Pakistanis and Indians in the party have no clue of it and they seem enjoying more than the Christians? I was sitting at the far end of the huge dining table wondering about the thoughts of flashing messages on my WhatsApp with news of further killings, massive funerals and wailing of mothers.
Nothing of this sort was on their mind or on the minds of the British who were busy in merrymaking. It was Britain that left an oozing wound in the shape of Kashmir in the subcontinent. They have forgotten history and they have forgotten us.
I was the only one in the gathering bearing the pain of the oozing blood of this wound every second of my life. Yet, I joined them in Christmas dinner. I wanted to share their joy, their festival and their forgetfulness of my misery like I join Diwali or other festivals with other communities.
The dining hall was smelling with the aroma of stuffed turkey, Brussel sprouts and Yorkshire pudding. Tantalising and eye catching. Christmas lights were dazzling every heart except mine. I have never learned the art of enjoying the festivals or getting absorbed into the celebrations. Rather, I was never allowed to. My people were only burying young, old and women every day, no matter it is Eid or Christmas or Indian Independence Day.
I felt the ache inside. It was making me feel the pain of not belonging to anywhere, not having my own identity or not taking pride in my own belief. The sense of having “nothingness” was turning into an excruciating pain; my land, my identity and my faith… have all become big disputes in my region.
The British have their own country and they celebrate Christmas with heart and soul. Diwali is the most amazing festival in India. Once, I got a chance to celebrate Eid in Lahore. Gosh, that was the best Eid I have observed, the lights, the food, the jubilations and more the sense of having it all in your own country that gives you the sense of belonging and fulfilment.
My state is the only state in India which has Muslim majority. We have never ever celebrated Eid with such fervour and festivity as Muslims are celebrating in their own country. Something is wrong with us or our place. Are we cursed or we are under some evil spell which has left us in such a situation where gloom and grief only rules the roost?
Before they started eating the Christmas feast, the guests were praising the God for the year that has given them life, livelihood and memories. They were pledging to move on with same zeal and fervour in 2019.
My eyes were moist, not knowing whether they were moist to see the guests happy to move on to the new year or moist for recollection of the count of people who got butchered back home in last year. I kept trying to look normal. I didn’t want to ruin their festival. In the core of my heart I was cursing myself for coming here….
They were singing Christmas carols….in my early childhood I used to watch the women in my neighbourhood coming out in droves on the eve of Eid and singing Rauf till late, which would give us time to giggle around and play hide and seek with friends. We would hide behind the women who were holding each other tight in a semi-circle chain stepping back and forth…. It got stopped the day I went to proper school. Eid came every year but there was no singing or no celebrations. Life just got stopped like the clock stopped my father had left in the balcony. We became the big arm of that clock that got stuck in the history of partition.
One of my friends, who was born in London and whose parents were Pakistanis, came closer to me and asked in a whisper, ” since the moment I have met you, I never saw you smiling. What is wrong with you. Do you people from the mountains never smile?”
Her whisper made my eyes moister and I whispered back, “we Kashmiris have not been lucky like you to learn how to smile. We are mourning since 1947. Please teach us this form of art as we are still stuck in the past”. Another friend from India was eavesdropping our whisper and she started a big laugh…. She took my hand in hers and said, “it is a moment of joy today and don’t ruin our day by your long face, come and join us…. eat big turkey and you will feel better”. .
“Yes, we have been only eating since”
I watched them dancing and thinking, either they were insensitive to my pain or I have become hypersensitive or people from mountains are anti-social…I leave it to you to decide……
(The writer is ex-editor of BBC and a Penguin author.)
nayeema7@gmail.com