A Christmas Reckoning

                It was 25^th of December and I was in Kolkata. I had been in Kolkata for the past three years, but this was my first Christmas in the city. Every year perhaps I was the first one amongst my friends to rush home post examinations – The night after the final exam. But I decided to stay for a week and experience the enthusiasm of the city on Christmas, after all, people talk about Christmas way before it arrives. Park Street! Park Street! Burger at Park Street! Night out at Park Street! That is all I’d heard in the name of the festival.

                So, there I was, in the evening, getting all styled and dressed and ready to explore. One thing that I had realised in my stay in the city was that, you can never be at par with the clock, executing your plans when you are with friends. “Where’s my shoe now?”, “I don’t think I should wear this jeans!”, “Hey, is my hair good or do I brush it a little more?” All these were shouts I could hear as I stood at the gate holding the lock and key in my hand. Ideally, we should have been at the local church by now. Finally two of them barged out of the gate like princes dressed no better than how they did daily. The third one had decided to stay and watch a movie instead. Respecting his decision, the three of us made for the central road.

                A small church in the locality was well lit and ornamented with beautiful flowers. We had planned to visit it, but we were already behind schedule. We skipped it. We kenspeckled our way through the narrow streets, and how every eye stared at us! We reached the main road, turning right would take us to the famous St. James Church. The road was packed with a torrent of buses running up and down taking people to and away from their destinations. The pavements were packed even denser. Nevertheless, we carved our way through the crowd nudging a little left, a little right from our set path and finally reached the church in about ten minutes.

                The church was alongside the pavement and was ornate with lights and flowers and soul capturing articles. An arrangement depicting the birth of Jesus was kept at the forefront, sealed with glass covered in fingerprints. I was only beginning to engross the awe aspiring beauty of the moment when I heard someone say, “What a nuisance they are, to be sitting right at the entrance of the place! Cannot they sit somewhere else?” I looked back but amidst the crowd, I could not see the speaker. “This is how they earn. It’s all a racket I say” I still could not see them but inquisitively I tottered to the source, but the speakers were gone.

                I looked around and there were people clicking photographs and selfies against the church. People talked, people laughed, people bought and people ate what they bought, but very few dared to look at the poor thing that sat against the gate. An old woman, probably old enough to die, all shrivelled up in a dirty, ragged blanket. She did not look up, she did not beg, she did not ask for any help, perhaps she was torn apart gathering a living in the real world. “We should buy her something” a friend approached me from behind. We bought a cake and a packet of biscuits from a nearby shop. My friend bend down to offer her the food. I took the biscuit packet from his hands and unpacked it for her.

                I knelt down to give it to her and for the first time looked at her face - into her eyes. A criss-cross of wrinkles starting from the eyes, running down to the chin through the loose cheeks. Chapped lips and a partly exposed forehead. But the eyes were the ones that sent shivers down my spine. They could not have belonged to her. Eyes like those shouldn’t belong to anyone in the world! They did not ask for help, no, they no longer asked for help! Those were mirrors into ourselves, into the society, into the bitter truth that we run away from every day! Those were eyes with no voice of their own!

                As I pushed the packet towards her, she drew her hands to pick up a biscuit and with great effort raised it to her mouth. The first bite witnessed a tear that rolled through her cheeks and fell to the dusty ground. She did not cry. It was just tears rolling off of her face – one and another and another – drenching the ground below. Perhaps she had transcended the state of everyday weeping. She was a horrible creation of the society. I rose up and looked around. People still clicked photos, they still talked, they still laughed, they still bought and ate what they bought! Soon I found myself standing before crucified Jesus embossed on the wall wondering if he cried the same way when people offered him their candles! Contemplating this I realised how the woman was no different that I, or you, or the world. We silence our voices when we realise no one is listening or understating, but then we talk through our eyes, and losing the voice of the eye is the worst that could happen! I did not light any candles at the church.