Days of cakes, ale & a free spirit

Let’s raise a toast to this festive spirit. Days of cakes, ale & a free spirit Kolkata is where the Christmas spirit lasts. With no preservatives added.
Mix a large portion of house parties, Midnight Mass at the cathedral, jiving at Rangers Club and merry making with family.
Add pieces of shopping, club hopping, meeting friends and relatives. Put dollops of Nahoums plum cakes and puddings and a wee bit of home made Port wine.Bake it in the oven of love and let the smell of Christmas waft in the air for long. It is just the perfect recipe for a merry Christmas.
It is that time of the year once again, when the kids are back and dads and moms have dug into their cupboards to take out their best clothes. Those quaint little shift stalls at New Market are there with their colourful knick knacks and Christmas trees, rows of shops along Park Street and Free School Street are festooned with colourful streamers, silver bells, mistletoes and holly, the clubs are gearing for the Xmas bash, local churches are resonating with Christmas carols and freshly baked plum cakes at Nahoums are off the shelves in a jiffy. For, if Burradin is near, the usual festivities cannot be far behind.
Christmas is a part of Kolkata that has been preserved in the original. No preservatives have been added. None are needed. The celebrations begin, as always, right from the first week of December when church services prepare the congregation, carol singing takes place in every local parish and the weekly community newspaper, The Herald, publishes articles on Christmas to build the festive spirit, says chronicler of the Anglo-Indian community and editor of the All Parish Paper, Melvyn Brown.
“It is a special occasion and reunion for the entire family as relatives, family members and friends from all over the world return home to be together,� he said.
Despite a large exodus of these community members to Australia, New Zealand and UK for better job prospects, Christmas is one time of the year when folks from far-off make it a point to return home to the city.
“I badly needed a holiday and what better way to enjoy Xmas than to be in the city where I have spent 40 years and be amidst old friends and former theatre group members to reminisce fond memories and indulge in spontaneous laughter,� said noted theatre personality Phyllis Bose. Having shifted base to Bangalore a few years back, Bose is presently in the city to spend Christmas with friends and relatives.
“In the earlier days, Christmas festivities would begin with regular house parties where musicians were invited to play all throughout the night and there was much revelry and merry making,� recalls jazz guitarist Carlton Kitto. Whether it was the Nandalal Court on Ripon Street, Bijoy mansion and Panchkothi on Elliot Road or those famous house parties thrown by the Tomkyns, Thomsons and Vivian Hanson of Elliot Road, the entire locality along with adjoining areas would be abuzz with revellers till the wee hours of dawn.
“We did not get individual invitations but were told through common friends and every one would prepare some cake, wine or food and come over to the party,� reminisces Kitto.
Old-timers remember with fondness the weeks preceding Xmas — ladies and young ones going to Pat Boone the tailor shop, to get their skirts and natty party dresses stitched, taking a bowl full of flour, raisins and eggs to the local bakery for making home-made sweet plum cakes, stocking home-made Port wine, going shopping to Hogg Market to buy turkey, the eternal favourite plum cakes, bakhlava, kalkal and marzipan from Nahoums and almond cake from Flurys. The seranaders i.e. the group of singers who went door to door singing carols and getting cakes and money in return or the poo poo bands which ushered the festival were hugely popular.
“Though the community has become smaller and several interesting events are no longer there, yet the close knit family ties and the various events at the clubs do their bit to add sparkle during Christmas,� feels Kitto.
While clubs like Rangers Club, Graille Club and Dalhousie Institute remain all time favourites during Christmas, others clubs too host Santa parties to add to the festive spirit.
Despite club parties and nightclubs gaining popularity among revellers, Xmas day still remains a homely affair with cakes, wine and family get togethers.
Endorsing the views is 21-year-old Treasure Kitto, daughter of Carlton who says, “The highpoint of Christmas is the Midnight Mass and meeting grandparents, cousins and friends.�
“The city has still retained the real meaning of Christmas and it is still a homely affair. It has not been carried away by the commercialisation of such occasions,� adds Bose’s friend Hyacinth Malkani, an old-resident of the city.
“The city is the best place to be in Christmas since it is not just a specific community celebration but one enjoyed by people from all walks of life,� says proprietor of a popular beauty parlour and an old-resident of the city, June Tomkyns. She adds, “The Xmas bonhomie in the city has increased by leaps and bounds and the family get-togethers is something I wouldn’t like to miss for anything in the world.�
According to Bose, there is a certain reality to the season and it is not just what can be bought and given but the warm smell of the Christmas cakes and goodies, the slightly out of tune jingle bells in New Market’s centre circle, the buzz to the Christmas spirit — not frantic or superficial but of people who share and experience each other’s festivals with equal enjoyment.
For, Xmas in Kolkata is all about reliving old memories and heralding the Yuletide spirit with Lord’s message of spreading Joy to the World.
As a case in point, Phyllis Bose points out, “Just the other day, I was at New Market and I suddenly saw this familiar old toothless coolie limping towards me and greeting me saying, Memsahib has come for Christmas? He actually remembered me. Tell me, where else in the world would that happen.�