25.12.2007

Happy Christmas!

Well, I've been in India for the past three years for christmas and very used to Indian way of celebrating it. I went for a long walk on the beach at 8am this morning, whilst still quiet, many westerners walking along, dogs falling them aimlessly, shops getting ready for the busy day and greeting people with "haooy christmas" as they walk past. Its a beautiful sunny day and the waves are crashing hard as though they are also in celebration mode.

I know that scene will be different by lunch time, as the fishing boats emerge into the shore, locals dancing crazy with bottles of whisky in their hangs, shimmering their shoulders and thrusting their hips (well this is the typical bollywood style dance afterall), families come down to the beach for the day: women in saris in water, small children with their fathers having swimming lessons...And this is a day when we all retrieve from the beach as it gets very crowdy and the men staring and undressing you with their eyes or shaking the hands of everyone at teh beach and wishing happy christmas can be tiresome. So we give the beach to the locals on christmas and new years day.

For the yogis, it is also the same tradition. Practice goes on as usual in the morning and teh traditional christmas buffet lunch at Lonely Planet where you get ripped off for the quality of food on offer. There are 120 students joining Lino there this year, some may not even be able to get seats and you end up being very much scattered around, having to make small talk with people on yoru table. The most fun part is Lino serving food to his students at teh bufet table with his santa hat on. But as we have done this for too many years in a row, a small group of us have decided to break away from the tradition and rebel. So instead we have our alternative christmas lunch at Suprabatham, celebrating christmas in style!

Now I head back to German Bakery to watch people slowly gather on the beach and sip my chai in peace!

Merry Christmas everyone...