A Christmas Story – Family Short Story
Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com
Christmas has become so different for me now. It’s now no longer waking up as early as possible and running to the pair of stockings hung beside my self-decorated Christmas tree to check for Santa’s gifts. It’s no longer waking to the Christmas carol playing at Mrs. Jonathan’s house (they have moved to a new place six years back, leaving their one-storied ‘cottage-house’ beside our apartment empty since then). No longer the excitement of going to the market with Baba to bring all the necessities for the evening party listed neatly on a piece of paper by Maa and most importantly waking up to the smell of baking, the warm, delicious smell of the cake in the oven filling my nostrils, the cake, that was Maa’s speciality. It’s been ten years since then.
My Christmas now is like yet another Sunday, waking up as late as 10 in the morning to Baba’s angry yells at me to leave the bed for the maid’s daily routine of cleanup. Carrying my blanket and pillow in my left hand headed towards Baba’s room for another round of dozing off, lazily checking the text messages on my phone with the right hand with half-open eyes and making clumsy and hasty replies to them. A few of them would be invitations to Christmas parties at some newly opened-up club beside the E.M. Bypass, with a new DJ playing and an array of food and beverages. All of them would be replied with a ‘maybe’. I am not a day to day planner and I welcome each day in a come as you are fashion. Most of my daily stuffs are impulsive moves except for routine habits that can’t be called off.
This Christmas day was unpleasant from the very start. It was rather cold than the usual (I beg to differ from most people who are an all praise for Kolkata’s winter). The maid had her day off without prior notice like always reason enough to put Baba in a grumpy mood with his regular dosage of shouts and yells at me raised by a considerable proportion. I didn’t want my Christmas to go this way. I had to move out. So checking my inbox would be the best thing to do. Definitely some invitation would be there.
Damn! The cell phone was out of charge. I hastily brushed my teeth and turned on my desktop and modem. Internet might be a respite from the boredom. Though my surfing is restricted to mainly flipping through the pages of a dozen social networking sites in which I have opened accounts and also a few sites bookmarked for getting guitar chords. But a day that is not yours will present obstacles in every possible way. The server was down much to my dismay. I rampaged my CD rack and there were just all the same stuff that I had been listening to.
Besides with Baba’s background music playing, it was definitely not the ambiance for some good music now. I dropped the possibility. Now I remember! Haven’t fidgeted with my PSP for a long time. But that didn’t seem a good option either. I needed new CDs and that needed money and I was low on my allowance, as expected. With all that was going on, it didn’t seem a time ripe for asking Baba for a refill. My mood was aggravated now.
“Cant you just stop playing that tape recorder now?”
“Why? What’s bothering you? You certainly, aren’t listening to that, I presume?”
“Of course not! I am deaf, nah? Your words are just fading into air, not a single syllable falling on my ears! Look Baba, this has now become a daily affair and you are over reacting…I need some money to buy new PSP CDs.”
“Now here comes my pampered child! You don’t ever feel like volunteering for a little help with my work? It’s just money that you need every time!”
“Listen, it’s not new that our maid hasn’t come. But you don’t have to be this cleanliness freak. You can easily spare yourself the pain of dusting today!”
“Parul hasn’t been coming for the last two days and I don’t get a day off from my office regularly.”
“Even Maa wasn’t such a maniac…”
“Maa!…it was a lot better then, nah? Do you remember your Christmas when Maa was here?”
“Yeah, I do, now don’t get started off again.”
“…you weren’t so arrogant then. You were not so crazy about gadgets and stuff…”
“…because I didn’t know how to use them and most importantly I did not need them then”
“Of course you didn’t, because Maa had taught you that when you feel restless, dissatisfied with what you have and still crave for more just think of the deprived, the downtrodden on the streets who don’t even have the basic amenities of life. You would feel better and privileged.”
That was all that I could hear. Baba was going on. I had gone out of my flat, running down the stairs of my apartment. My mood wasn’t any better, rather I felt morose. Every time Baba brings up old stuff, I feel like running away from them. I had got down on the street, making a brisk walk along the footpath. It was chilling cold with the large number of trees blocking the sunlight here in the avenues of Jodhpur Park. I suddenly spotted a mother and her child under a tree.
They were in rags, did not even have a blanket to keep them warm. The dim fire beside them had almost gone out. The mother was trying to make the child cozy by wrapping him up under her sari. A car stopped beside them. A girl, dressed in school uniform came down from it and handed over a parcel, wrapped in marble paper to the mother. She rapidly tore off the string and unwrapped the gift. It was a blanket, just what they needed for the moment. I could see the light on their faces which shone brightly in the misty morning day. But I could not feel the warmth which they might have felt. Rather, the sight sent a chill down my spine. I could clearly hear my father’s parting words as I left the apartment in a voice that was so familiar to me, a voice that made my childhood winter days warm and merry – a voice that was my mother’s.
Things of material comfort and luxury had so robbed me of my simplicity and sensitiveness. I had lost the feeling of simple joys and pleasures of life. I was never satisfied with what I had and always yearned for more, never thinking of those who could not afford a frugal meal of bread and butter on Christmas day. Now I knew how I was going to spend my Christmas evening. I would chill out at home with my father. Only that, I now needed to pull up the courage to ask Baba to go out with me for shopping.
__END__
