By IANS
Kolkata : Park Street, the sunset boulevard of Kolkata, was awake the whole night as the eastern metropolis threw a big Christmas party with cakes, carols and a chorus of prayer in the churches and Mother House, the global headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity (MoC) founded by Nobel peace prize winner Mother Teresa.
As the aroma of home-baked cakes wafted through the narrow lanes of Anglo-Indian ghettos of central Kolkata, the non-Christians joined the party with as much festive gusto and piety.
The imposing St. Paul’s Cathedral here ushered in Christmas with carols and peace prayers, attended by thousands of Christians and non-Christians.
“I wish I had come a little earlier to get a better place at the church,” said young Angelina.
At the decorated Mother House on A.J.C. Bose Road, visitors poured in since Friday night.
“We had a mass at 9 p.m. Friday. Before the mass, we staged a Christmas play by our volunteers and inmates. In the morning, at 6 a.m., we had another mass,” Sister Christie of MoC told IANS.
“We had a feeding programme at Shishu Bhavan (the orphanage run by the MoC),” Sister Christie said.
For the Christians of Kolkata, there is no better place to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ than here.
“Which is the best place to celebrate Christmas? Delhi? Mumbai? New York, London? Give me Kolkata, any day,” said Quiz Master and now Trinamul Congress leader Derek O’Brien.
At Bow Barracks, home to 132 Anglo-Indian families made famous by Anjan Dutta’s celluloid adaptation of the life in the quarters in recent film “Bow Barracks Forever”, wine flowed freely as residents partied all night.
“We are partying for the past few days here. We are enjoying it to the hilt,” said a young reveller at Bow Barracks quarters, decked up with streamers, Santa masks, bells and X-mas trees.
The residents of Bow Barracks live in uncertainty after the civic authorities decided to pull down the structures for it would have meant the death of a colonial heritage, but Christmas is the time to forget the blues.
“During Christmas, let us not talk about such worries or controversies. This is celebration time. We will ring in the New Year by felicitating old residents,” said Allen J Lobo, secretary of the Bow United Organisations, the tenants’ association.
Wine is flowing in all Christian homes of Kolkata.
“Christmas without home-made port wine is no Christmas. Our mothers and grandmothers used to make them and Kolkata was once famous for wines brewed by Anglo Indian women in the city,” said Gillian Rosemary Hart, a former legislator in West Bengal Assembly.
Bow Barracks is known for its assortment of fruit wines. Almost every home, be it Anglo Indians, Christians from Goa or the resident Chinese and the Bengali population brew their own wine and bake their own fruit cakes for Christmas.
Kolkata is also famous for its old-world confectioneries, which bake special Christmas cakes and cookies.
There were long queues outside Nahoum’s, an old Jewish bakery in New Market to the Flury’s, another British era tearoom on Park Street, which has been done up.
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” said Oscar Wilde. The Kolkatans are living up to the famous expression.
Chiming church bells and the sweet aroma of freshly-baked goodies set the tone for Christmas, the great social leveller, in the city of joy.