A Very Marathi Christmas
Christmas is the single most important day in the UK calendar without a doubt. The same way Maharashtrians celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, people in London go crazy about Christmas, and I don’t just mean on Christmas Day, I mean at the very least 3-4 months before. In fact, the whole Christmassy season starts from September. September the bloody sixteenth and I can already hear “Jingle Bells” and “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” playing in Sainsbury’s when I’ve just popped out to grab some coriander and GG paste. Tinsel and presents aside – Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus, something that was drilled into me during every religious studies lesson in nursery, in fact I think most years until the age of 10 I was celebrating the baby Jesus’s birthday more than my own. Now that I’m slightly older than 10, living in the UK has meant Christmas comes like second nature, it’s a cultural staple of here and there’s definitely something unique about the way UK Maharashtrians celebrate it; a perfect example is instead of leaving out cookies and milk for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, I would leave out dood-halad and khaari biscuits; as well as many more.
The Nativity
The nativity play is the play about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and is the only play that everybody was made to take part in when I was in nursery. Even children who didn’t want to act or who were totally rubbish at anything artistic – they were “made to feel included”. At the time, it wasn’t that I didn’t have an artistic bone in me (Maharashtrians are supposed to have an inbuilt talent for acting in plays) – because I scored well on multiplication tests the teachers assumed that I “had a good memory” so I could learn lots of lines, and they gave me the part of the narrator. The most boring part of any play.
Every weekly rehearsal we had until Christmas all my other classmates were allowed to dress up in little gowns and hats for their parts while I had to stay in my crappy grey uniform and wear a big “narrator” sash, it should have just said boring on it. By the time it came to the actual play there was always some idiot playing the part of the angel or Joseph who forgot their line and it was my job to prompt them. So I had to learn my lines and their lines, and make sure I didn’t burst out laughing during any scene. Learning about the nativity and rehearsing the play was also coupled with learning as many Christmas carols as possible including “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, “Away in a Manger” and “Deck the Halls”. I know these almost as well as I know Shubham Karoti Kalyanam and Rama Raksha.
Learning about the background of Christmas persisted throughout nursery and into secondary school, by this time I knew the story inside out right from every word the Angel of the Lord said to what kind of weather it must have been, to what Joseph’s favourite shoe brand was. Having said that, learning about Christmas gave a good background that made me understand past all the materialistic decorations and the jingles, just like Ganesh Chaturti, Christmas is about love, family and prosperity. And getting fat.
The Christmas Weekend
Since everybody gets Christmas time off, we always call it “Christmas Weekend”; getting together for Christmas is always the same every single year – my family meets with a bunch of other Maharashtrian families in the middle of nowhere, we eat, we drink, we get fat, we get drunk. This is the plan, this plan never changes, we don’t get adventurous, we do it this way every year.
Day 1/Chrismas Eve involves driving three hours across the pond to Wales, somewhere in the fields, beyond the meadows is a small pocket of Maharashtrian families whom we have known for years. For convenience we will refer to them here as the Cardiff Gang. The Cardiff Gang are a warm bunch and take Christmas time very seriously, which is probably why my family and I are with them every Christmas, because we know we won’t ever be disappointed. Not only that, but they are exactly like us, what’s more fun than a family of Maharashtrians at Christmas? Having six Maharashtrian families together at Christmas. Drive done, bags kept in somebody’s guest room and it’s onwards to the head of the Cardiff Gang’s house – the Wagles, and into their kitchen to start prepping food for Christmas Day.
I’m going to tell you right now that this part of Christmas just isn’t fun. As I walk into the kitchen every year it’s like an illegal sweatshop of kakus and all these random children standing and chopping vegetables. And I don’t mean lovely tasty vegetables like bhendi and bhopla, I mean the vegetables they serve in old age homes – the dreaded Brussels sprouts, parsnips and red cabbage that looks like something out of a horror movie.
I sheepishly walk in hoping nobody will give me a job to do but I always fail to go unnoticed; within five minutes I feel a massive hand grab my elbow and it’s Wagle kaku dragging me to a table to get started on peeling some potatoes. 25 peeled potatos later and I’m moved onto making ganache for some monstrous dessert one of the kids have decided to make, this process of food preparation goes on for the next few hours until somebody decides that they have had enough; which is when we cover everything with tin foil and move on to house number 2 – The Hemmadi House.
Pre-Christmas cocktails always happens here, food prep is all out of the way and everybody descends on the Hemmadis to glug down toxic glasses of mulled wine.
Mulled wine is sort of like a spiced port, lots of cinnamon, star anise and cloves (almost like biriyani) that people only drink around Christmas time, something very similar to “kaadha”. Hemmadi kaka is a dangerous man, armed with a huge spoon he always makes without fail, a huge cauldron of mulled wine and hands everybody at least five glasses each.
The problem with this drink is that it’s so. Damn. Tasty. Sweet, slightly spicy and moreish, it will have you on the floor within an hour, which is what happens to at least one person. It also unfortunately stains your lips so by the end of the evening it looks like a loud congregation of Maharashtrian vampires. By the end of the evening, after all the chatting and hugging and mulled wine, it’s time to get to bed to be up early for Christmas Day.
Christmas Day
Finally, the day is upon us. Christmas Day. The day we have all been working towards. Waking up at the Wagle house I can already feel the remnants of the previous night’s mulled wine still swimming in my brain and I stumble downstairs to drink a life-saving cup of tea and a khaari biscuit. I always try to wake up early on Christmas Day but that never happens so by the time I come down to the kitchen it’s already 11am and everybody else is busy wrapping up the prepped food to take over to the third Cardiff Gang family’s house – the Gaitondes.
I don’t know why we don’t just prep everything there, but it’s a tradition I suppose. Before walking to the next house, it’s time to have showers, and prim and prep. I absolutely love dressing up in Indian clothes, give me a lehnga, bangles and glitter and I will gladly dress up like a Bollywood princess and walk out into the street with total confidence. Christmas however is about wearing frumpy Christmas jumpers and dresses, neither of which I look good in. Nevertheless, I cake my face in some glittery festive makeup, pull on my lumpy Christmas jumper and walk two streets down the road to the Gaitondes where we all gather for the rest of the day. This house worries me – because round every corner there is something delicate and made of glass that I guarantee one day I will walk into and smash by mistake. On Christmas this fear doubles due to seeing additional Christmas trees, glass baubles and tinsel everywhere. As far as I can recall nobody has broken anything yet; maybe because they know Gaitonde kaku will probably shoot them.
Over the next hour or so, the house starts to fill up with more and more Maharashtrians dressed in sweaters, old man shirts, and dresses complete with potent aftershaves, glossy nails and high heels; wishing Merry Christmas to everybody and giving out lots of painfully strong hugs. Immediately I start to have flashes of characters from “Goodness Gracious Me”, a BBC TV comedy show that was a parody on the lives of British Indians. One particular parody scene sticks out to me, a scene showing two Indian families who had recently moved to the UK, the Kapoors and the Rabindranaths who end up referring to themselves instead as the Coopers and the Robinsons, and do their very best to “do as the English do”.
Now you quite literally get the picture.
Actually I think you could use another one.
There that’s more like it.
The living room descends into a low rumble of overly happy jingly Christmas carols, and the dads talking about their wonderful weekends with the Queen’s Christmas Speech on the TV in the background; while the aais run off to the kitchen to make sure none of the food starts burning. All Indians are used to huge gatherings and cooking for thousands of people but the difference with Christmas cooking is that everything is about “timing”. And if you thought Indians were bad with timing, you have obviously never met Maharashtrians. Which brings us neatly to the main part of Christmas Day, the food.
Christmas Lunch
I don’t know why they call it Christmas lunch it’s just eating all day. From the minute I walk into the Gaitonde house I have a cup of eggnog or mulled wine in one hand and a brie & cranberry parcel/ chicken vol au vent in the other which are sort of like samosas but with more cream and no chilli powder. Thank god. The eating is constant and the crescendo is the Christmas Lunch which we all have around 3pm together on a long table. All of that prep, honey glazing, roasting and frying was all worth it when it’s all together heaving on the table, with the prized turkey in the centre – very Instagrammable.
Turkey is one of those things that looks wonderful but ultimately should be looked at, marvelled at, but never eaten. If you’ve ever eaten varan which doesn’t have any salt in it then you have basically eaten turkey, it’s like air, even after all the painstaking effort of having prosciutto crocheted over it, basting it in juices, and slow cooking it, it is in fact, a ball of air.
But looking at it in the centre of a table surrounded by honey glazed parsnips, pigs in blankets, Yorkshire puddings and salad (no idea what the hell the salad’s there for), it looks beautiful and you can’t help but take a couple of slices. The actual eating part of the Christmas dinner is difficult, especially for me, because by the time I sit down to eat I’ve already had about 20 vol au vents and a whole fist of brie. It’s especially annoying when I sit down and look up to see I’m facing one of the children who just won’t touch their food and starts crying. This feeling of hopelessness all changes however, when Chawathe kaku arrives (late of course) with a huge tray of slow cooked spicy lamb.
HURRAH. Food with TASTE. With INDIAN TASTE. All those voices in my head telling me to stop eating seem to quieten down once the lamb arrives and I lunge myself out of my chair to take some before all the others. I fill my plate to the brim with lamb, potatoes, carrots and pretty much everything else there is before sitting down. Five mouthfuls in, and I look at my plate realising I won’t ever finish it. It’s at this point that my life flashes before me and I start to think the following:
“Weight: 500 kg”
“How can you always end up fat and constantly eating every single Christmas”
“Have bottom the size of Maharashtra now”
“Must join gym”
“Must be size 4 by February”
“Good plan”
Next thing I know – it’s time for pudding. And I just give up hope. With deep regret I shovel a huge portion of ice cream and Christmas pudding into my bowl and chow down on it until my stomach can physically take no more. In a daze, I somehow help out with putting everything away with the others and drag myself into some dark corner of the room, I shlump down into a chair and wish I never ate anything in my whole life. It doesn’t last long though, it’s only 5pm remember.
I’m at the point where I am ready to go to sleep, for the rest of my life. I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I just want a cup of green tea, a shower and bed. But out of nowhere some fitness freak kaka decides to make everybody “go for a walk”. I still haven’t figured out who is the ringleader for this, but it’s one of my aims in life. We all wrap up in our coats, I can barely fit into mine at this point because of my food baby, and we head out in the Welsh freeze for a walk around the neighbourhood. The other Cardiff gang kids and I give up twenty minutes later and head back to the Gaitonde house for a game of Uno or Pictionary before passing out on the couches. Wise.
The Aftermath
It’s that odd time, around 8pm where it’s just too early to go to sleep, but the good part is that we have all somewhat digested the mass of food we ate earlier. My jeans are not suffocating me, I can move without feeling like I’m dragging another person with me and things start to feel hopeful. Which can only mean one thing – it’s time to drink and play games.
The first thing I notice is the constant “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” song playing in the background has suddenly been switched off and now, blaring out the speakers is “Jai Jai Maharashtra Maza” or “Shantabai”. Hurraaaaah finally songs that will wake me up and make me want to move and hopefully burn some more calories. Also, now instead of mulled wine, Hemmadi kaka is handing out glasses of absolutely everything ranging from gin and tonics to champagne to absinthe. It’s that time in the evening where we realise that while we do love celebrating Christmas, it’s time to get back to basics.
Instead of PG13 games like charades we switch this up too and start to play a game called Spoons which is a card game of matching pairs and also involves grabbing a spoon in the middle of the circle of players. Things tend to start slow but as the night progresses things tend to turn violent when the little children want to “join in” and then cry when they graze a finger while trying to grab a spoon. I think they should honestly just stay in their rooms and do a Kumon paper instead. It’s for their own good.
The final part of the evening consists of some final attempts by all of us to dance to songs like “Aika Dajiba” or “Wajle ki Bara” which looks more like a badly organised aerobics class of pensioners thrusting and busting moves, which is surprisingly since I thought none of us would have the ability to move without falling over, either from still being full from the lunch or from far too much alcohol. It’s safe to say at this point that it’s time to sleep it off and just hope for the best the next day. It’s been a great Christmas, but in a way, I’m just relieved it’s over, and I crawl into bed, hug my pillow and sleep for what seems like centuries.
Boxing Day
You would think that everything ends once Christmas Day is over but no, there’s one last meal before my family and I drive back home and sprint to the nearest gym. Boxing Day brunch normally happens at the Gokhales, yet another principal family of the Cardiff Gang and a safe haven from all the Christmas overload. When I walk into the Gokhale kitchen I am greeted by a smiling vat of varan, freshly made polis, bhaajis, kheema and rice. Yes, it’s true I ate for the whole of England the day before, but I will always. Always ALWAYS make room for varan bhaat. I have no idea what has happened to all the leftover turkey, vegetables and pudding but I just don’t care anymore. In fact, Christmas Day is the only day in the calendar where I eat that kind of food and once it’s over, I can’t take any more. After a final round of “Merry Christmas” we move onto several rounds of “Haa ok bye, ok phone amhala phone kara, achcha ok bye, haa ya bye” and finally, drive home.
This is the first year where we aren’t celebrating like this because of the COVID pandemic, there isn’t the same cheer in the air and believe it or not I’m actually aching to hear some Christmas carols blaring out on loud speakers when I have to go to Sainsbury’s. On top of that there is definitely an internal conflict for me where on one hand I believe I shouldn’t celebrate Christmas with so much effort when I’m not even British. I mean, I have that rosy pink passport but I’m not “British”. But then on the other hand, I want to take part in the customs and celebrations of the country that I live in, as long as I’m giving the same respect to my heritage. The only problem with this is it means double the number of celebrations and double the number of calorific lunches and dinners.
All I have to remember is to double the number of hours at the gym afterwards… I’m still working on that part.
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