Merry Christmas!

 

Memories of feelings and flavours of the Christmas holidays at my beloved school—Taluk High School, come flooding back. The story begins on a crisp winter night, over six decades ago, as I nestled into bed, cocooned in a thick, comforting blanket, the sound of church bells pierced the serene silence of the town. Their reverberations heralded the special Christmas services.  .  . But even in that dense night, their chiming made me to curl further inside the blanket …

The next morning as I walked along with my annayya to a store next to the towering church, I saw from the road the image of Jesus on the cross illuminated by the feeble light of a candle deep inside the Church. Crossing it, we stepped into a fancy store. As my brother picked up some cream-coloured cards with the words ‘Merry Christmas & Season’s Greetings’ printed in maroon under a pair of chiming bells, I saw for the first time how a greeting card looked like.  

Those were the wonders of childhood: kite flying, Merry Christmas greeting cards, Sankranti festival, new crop arrival, new clothes, supplication to Gods … all mechanically… with a little or no understanding of them. Nevertheless, full of joy … … real merriness all-around. 

As the years passed and I moved into college, new thoughts, and newer questions about God, prayers, rituals, and existence began to emerge… …  One evening, rummaging in the library, tumbled upon the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Oh, my God! What a sweet melancholy!

Wrestling with complex notions of God, faith and religious devotion, Emily Dickinson pronounces, “‘Faith’ is a fine invention”. And, she didn’t stop there. Rather followed it with a caveat: “When Gentlemen can see”. 

Is she suggesting that ‘faith’ being an invention of man for man, might not be a crucial natural phenomenon?   

But when she says, “I never saw a Moor – / I never saw the Sea – / Yet know I how the Heather looks / And what a Billow be”, is she not asserting that faith is an essential, authentic and paramount quality?   

Indeed in her admission, “I never spoke with God / Nor visited in Heaven / Yet certain am I of the spot / As if the checks were given – ”, we see an extension of her imaginative knowledge to the metaphysical realm and why, we could even see her devout faith in a Supreme Being.

Is she arguing through these two poems that proof of God’s existence is the Universe’s existence? Is her imagery in these poems taking us from natural to the supernatural? Perhaps, ‘Yes’: first by establishing that Moors and Seas exist despite her no personal contact with either, and then extending the same intellectual conviction, she confesses the existence of ‘Heaven’.    

That’s not the end of the story, for she takes us from this strong idealistic faith of “I never saw a Moor …” to scientific rationalism by declaring, “But Microscopes are prudent / In an Emergency”. Indeed, she says faith matters only “When gentlemen can see”.  In an emergency, when one ostensibly cannot see, “Microscopes are prudent”.

Thus, contrasting religion with scientific rationalism, she says that faith is less useful vis-à-vis microscopic evidence. Or, is she, through these lines, advising us to balance our spiritual beliefs with the cold realities of scientific observation. Maybe!

Her poems even suggest that God is allusive, indifferent and often cruel: the “happy flower”, perhaps with the apparent indifference of the “Approving God” was struck down by the frost’s “accidental power”.

This very poetess also muses on ‘Hope’ that rings true and soothes the parched heart with warmth: “'Hope’ is the thing with feathers— / That perches in the soul— / And sings the tune without the words — / And never stops—at all —”.

So, let me end these musings “spreading wide my narrow Hands” to bring in all of “Paradise” for you to enjoy this Christmas season.