Reminiscing the Calcutta Christmas - A festival for everyone

Calcuttans love a good celebration. That is why festivals form such an integral part of Calcutta’s cultural ethos. They give them the perfect opportunity to ditch daily life and immerse themselves mind, body, and soul into the occasions.

While no festival in Calcutta has ever been restricted by religion, Christmas is probably the most striking example of its inclusivity. Come December, Calcutta, especially Park Street, decks up with lights, the restaurants feature Christmas dinners, and rich plum cakes line the shelves of bakeries big and small. Buying a Christmas cake from Nahoum, a 115-year-old Jewish bakery or Saldanha Bakery owned by a small Goan family is practically a tradition in Calcutta. The stalls of Muslim vendors across Free School Street and New Market are glittering with tinsel, Christmas trees, Santa Claus dolls, and ornaments. Even the occasional Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus find their way into these stores.

Irrespective of religion, people arrive at the gates of St. Paul’s Cathedral to see the Christmas decoration, attend the Christmas carnival, and even the midnight Mass. The old Anglo-Indian quarters of Bow Barracks, with their signature red brick houses, are bedecked with strands of lights, vendors from the nearby old China Town set up stalls to sell steaming hot fish sui mai, and momos. A stage is set up for musical performances that often include Bollywood songs. Earlier you could find homemade ginger ale and wines too. Families, who have migrated to all corners of the world return to the Barracks for Christmas, bake homemade cakes to sell at the Christmas carnival, and enjoy their glasses of wine until it’s time for Mass. If you are lucky, they will invite you into their homes, offer you cake and wine, and ask you to join them for dinner.

Park Street is full of ubiquitous Bengali women in their best silk sarees with children in tow taking selfies in front of the giant Christmas tree - a recent addition in the Park Street decoration. What was once a quiet and posh celebration of the Calcutta gentry has now become an over-the-top weeklong carnival with food stalls lining both sides of the street, skinny Santa Clauses roaming around, and blaring music from speakers inside Allen Park. However, in all this cacophony, there is undeniable joy. Smiling faces, fuelled by a variety of sweet and savoury snacks, and blinking devil-horn headband-wearing girls giggling while their nervous boyfriends trail behind them are some sights you are sure to see.

You are also likely to spot a turbaned man in this crowd, or a group of women in hijab, or even the occasional foreign tourists trying to make their way back to the hotel. Queues outside the restaurant lengthen as the night darkens and an anticipation of a good meal is palpable in the air. It would be no surprise to suppose that somewhere in this gaudily lit up street, in one of the restaurants, a Hindu girl is enjoying a succulent turkey dinner with her Muslim friend.

However, there is nothing forced about any of this. This is just how Christmas has always been in the city. These few fleeting days of wintry chill, the promise of oranges and roasted nuts at a picnic in the zoo, the glittering tinsel in New Market, the smell of cake as you walk past Flury’s, no wonder the people of Calcutta wait for December so eagerly. Like everything in the city, Christmas too has a completely unique character that you need to experience to understand. After all, where else are you going to find Christmas trees in every house, irrespective of their faith?

Now, isn’t that something worth preserving?

Cheers!

Team Destination Knowledge Centre

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