Merry Christmas!

Winter. “Monkey” caps, shawls, sweaters, ear-muffs, and brrrrr-ing. There are certain geographical aspects to Christmas. Here are some.

Snow! Snow?? Here in southern India? Not on your life! But just check out the greeting cards in stores and see how many of them show snow — flakes falling, snow on the ground, and … snowmen! Also, Santa Claus riding his sleigh, clad in warm red-and-white clothing, all bundled up against the icy winter. The sleigh pulled by reindeer (there is no reindeers).

Note the Christmas carols we sing. Ask yourself how many of them depict snowy Christmas themes. Look at the kinds of food that are considered Christmas delicacies. Identify ones that are most common in southern India. You will likely find: plum cake (with and without rum, depending on taste), kal-kal, and rose cookie (achchu murukku in Tamil and Malayalam) very easily. Other kinds of cakes will also be likely in the picture.

Several years ago, I was visiting my aunt in Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu on Christmas Day. In the morning, I went out for a walk in the neighborhood. I was very pleasantly surprised to find elaborate and colourful rangolis (kolam in Tamil) in front of Hindu households. Around the colourful patterns drawn were the words: “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” in English and in Tamil. Colourful buntings hung around the entrances. As I passed by, I casually peeked into the front room (sort of verandah) to see what pictures hung on the wall, facing the front door.

Most of them had pictures of Hindu deities.

So, here were people celebrating a festival, crossing “boundaries” of religion. As a geographer, I find such expression very powerful because it helps us see ways of harmonious sharing of space. If you look at geography as a discipline (not just as a subject as your textbook does), you will see the power of cultures expressed in our geographic space. Every act of this kind is important because it says something about the connections we feel with others and our environment — not just physical connections, but also emotional and psychological connections.

In the 1980s, when I lived in the USA, one Christmas morning, I had driven to the grocery store to fetch some milk. It was snow and ice all over the place. The town was very quiet, very white, and looked beautiful. As I drove, I listened to a report on the radio in the car. The American reporter described his experience of Christmas in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Among the things he described was a procession of the Holy Mother and the Holy Child. As the procession wended its way through the streets, large numbers of people lined on either side. These were not Christians alone, but people of many different faiths. As the icons processed (yes, it is a verb form of procession, pronounced pro-CESSED), everyone took time away from other activities to look at the icons with the namaste gesture. At this point, the reporter remarked upon the importance of this practice: darshanam, i.e., sight, vision.

To see the Divine means to be seen by the Divine. (Well, you will probably recall that concept from your physics class: recti-linear propagation of light; if not, look it up!). Thus, when the Divine sees the devotee, it is a blessing for the devotee.

It doesn’t matter where blessings come from so long as we see divinity there. The form does not matter. And this whole process (now the noun :-) ) happens in a shared geographic space. This is a powerful enactment of geography.

Summer Christmas

Now you move to the part of Earth, south of the Equator and there is a different story. On 25 December, the sun has just left the Tropic of Capricorn a few days ago, on its “journey” to the northern hemisphere. So, around the T of C, it is high summer. People are in shorts and T-shirts. Many are lolling about on beaches, in the bright sunlight, dabbing sun-screen lotion on themselves. Some are surfing the waves and hoping that the local sharks don’t show up and take off a limb or something!

People from the northern hemisphere often travel to warm locations for the holidays. Many may go to Florida in the USA, or to the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean — mild winters and not-too-hot summers, a definite attraction for a lot of people. And, of course the delicious Mediterranean cuisine. I had better stop thinking of that cuisine, it always makes me very hungry!

Merry Christmas!

And save some kal-kal and rose cookie for me.

Things you can do:

1. Observe the geographic aspects of Christmas around you in your own area, visit a church, observe the decorations, eat some cake, and have fun. That should be enough to be going on, don’t you think?
2. Also read this earlier blog post, “A Merry Geographic Christmas.”

A version of this article appears in the Deccan Herald Student Edition on 17 December 2015.

Featured image, Christmas rangoli, courtesy: ArtPlatter