If you ever have time visit www.nisha-in-india.blogspot.com Nisha Khan is one of my friends from the tour. She's from Onterio and is living in the town of Yavatmal. Her posts aren't frequent but they're good. I copied the following from her blog. It was actually written by our friend Chris who's from outside of Chicago and is staying in Nagpur. It's about the Christmas Eve that we spent in Nagpur it's very truthful and well written the rest of the post is written by Nisha about Christmas Day, I didn't have the space to copy that too :
"This is all Chris Yoder. Seriously, you should meet Chris Yoder. He is pretty spiffy.
I’d had no idea this many Nagpurians went to church. This was the only church I was aware of in the city, but even accounting for the scarcity of places to celebrate Christmas, I was shocked to see the turnout for midnight mass. People spilled out of the cathedral, which was literally packed beyond capacity. Somehow we made our way under the church’s roof, and our group was let through until we had seats in the two frontmost pews.
This wasn’t the kind of crowd I was used to in India. People stared at us of course, but something was different in their expressions. There were the usual looks of shock at seeing foreigners, but also something more. On their faces was pity, with a hint of understanding, something I’d never seen flashed in my direction. The curiosity was apparent in their eyes. For once, the silent-stated question wasn’t “Who are you?” but “Why are you spending Christmas here?”
I think that last question dawned on some of us as the organ blared out and the choir sang. What were we doing here?
We looked in front of us: A priest was talking about Christmas. The high-ceilinged cathedral was decorated for the holiday. There was even a tree – a real Christmas tree!
Just like home.
We looked behind us: Rows of Indians sat watching the service, not one a familiar face. Outside, the street didn’t look like snow had ever fallen on it. Two-wheelers, not four-wheelers, were parked in abundance beyond the open doors.
Nothing like home.
We looked beside us.
For once, it wasn’t our families sitting by our sides as Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day. But it might as well have been a family. Caught between continents, between families, between homes, who did we have but each other?
For the second time that night, we sang Silent Night. Compared to our light-hearted rendition at PC Club, the song at the church was accompanied by a melancholy, albeit oddly cathartic air. Afterwards, many went to be blessed by a priest, half of us completely unfamiliar with the custom. When we returned to our seats at the end of the service, about a dozen Indians came to wish us Merry Christmas, and only one asked for a picture.
Is it really worthwhile to report that almost each of us hugged each other as we left the church around 1 a.m. on Christmas Day? At least five of us were crying in earnest, even those who were unaccustomed to such Christmas traditions. As we stood together at the end of the night, it was as though we had weathered a great storm where the precipitation came from people’s eyes, not the sky above.
When we arrived at the Khatri’s house that night, Pooja noticed “the gents” – Jordan, Jakob and I – were among the few with dry eyes. “Why is that?” she asked.
See, I’m not the type of person to outwardly express their sadness. Only at select moments on this exchange have I even come close to tears – before my flight to Nagpur after ten hours in the Mumbai airport in July, after Mayank left home in September, and while talking to my mom in October, hearing her voice for the first time in three months.
I felt compelled to respond to Pooja’s comment. “Just because there’s not water coming out of my eyes doesn’t mean I don’t miss my family!” Because, dry eyes or not, I really did.
And so did every other exchange student I was with that night.
There’s a chalkboard at Modern School onto which inspiring sayings are often written. One came to mind as I looked back on our Christmas night:
“Shared sorrow is half the pain, and shared happiness is twice the joy.”
We shared a lot with each other that night – our food, our homes, our personal stories, our personal space. We shared in our sorrow and we shared in our happiness. Essentially, we were sharing ourselves.
In spite of all the reasons I had to be sad, that’s why I was happier than I’d ever been on Christmas Eve.
Four hours after falling asleep, the alarm on my watch woke me around seven on Christmas morning. There was no rush downstairs towards a thickly ornamented Christmas tree, no pile of presents off which to rip red wrapping paper, no cold cocoa left half-sipped on the dining table next to a thank you note from Kris Kringle.
But why focus on what this Christmas didn’t offer when there was so much more that it did?
The product of the past day’s media coverage had been manifested in the morning’s paper. I was pictured posing with the others, my palms together over my head for no reason but the aesthetics of the photo. Two other pictures were shown with the accompanying article, but the highlight was the given caption. France, Germany and Canada had apparently been forgotten; according to the caption, the performing Rotary students apparently hail not only from the USA, but also from Sweden and Japan.
So what was it? Did we get new exchange students overnight, or had there been some secret cross-continental emigrations courtesy Santa’s sleigh?
Journalistic inaccuracies laughed aside, we said goodbye and began our search for separate autos home. Amanda, Anaïs, Nisha and I decided to share a ride, given the proximity of our homes. With activity on the streets this time of day scarce, finding an auto was proving to be a challenge. Rarely did anything pass us on the street, let alone an auto. The few our eyes could catch were just taunting us, full and unable to accommodate us. It was a solid ten minutes before we flagged down an auto driver that would give us a reasonable rate for a ride home.
Halfway home, that is.
The rickshaw came to a stop on an empty street, and I knew as soon as the driver turned to us and said “No petrol” that I had another signature moment in my already memorable holiday. I doubt I’ll ever again be stranded in a rickshaw on Christmas, and as the situation resolved itself minutes later when another rickshaw came by, I was slightly disappointed. Couldn’t there be some unexpected twist or epic encounter, like our ride getting stuck in quicksand or chased by a horde of wild elephants?
It was in relative peace that I jogged home from where the second rickshaw dropped us. I could have walked, but it seemed more prudent to run as quickly as possible. Once again I became self-conscious, wondering what the few locals on the street were thinking of the blue-jean clad foreigner jogging through Nagpur on Christmas morning. Patches of sun made their way through the trees and cool air blew softly across my face. Normally caught in a tangled mass of pillows, blankets and dreams this time of day, the morning’s atmosphere was another blatant, refreshing contrast to my ordinary life.
Most members of my host family were not yet awake, but I wished Merry Christmas to those who were. Running on four hours of sleep, the double bed in my room tantalized me with its comfort, but I sat on it quite upright and finished wrapping my gift."
"This is all Chris Yoder. Seriously, you should meet Chris Yoder. He is pretty spiffy.
I’d had no idea this many Nagpurians went to church. This was the only church I was aware of in the city, but even accounting for the scarcity of places to celebrate Christmas, I was shocked to see the turnout for midnight mass. People spilled out of the cathedral, which was literally packed beyond capacity. Somehow we made our way under the church’s roof, and our group was let through until we had seats in the two frontmost pews.
This wasn’t the kind of crowd I was used to in India. People stared at us of course, but something was different in their expressions. There were the usual looks of shock at seeing foreigners, but also something more. On their faces was pity, with a hint of understanding, something I’d never seen flashed in my direction. The curiosity was apparent in their eyes. For once, the silent-stated question wasn’t “Who are you?” but “Why are you spending Christmas here?”
I think that last question dawned on some of us as the organ blared out and the choir sang. What were we doing here?
We looked in front of us: A priest was talking about Christmas. The high-ceilinged cathedral was decorated for the holiday. There was even a tree – a real Christmas tree!
Just like home.
We looked behind us: Rows of Indians sat watching the service, not one a familiar face. Outside, the street didn’t look like snow had ever fallen on it. Two-wheelers, not four-wheelers, were parked in abundance beyond the open doors.
Nothing like home.
We looked beside us.
For once, it wasn’t our families sitting by our sides as Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day. But it might as well have been a family. Caught between continents, between families, between homes, who did we have but each other?
For the second time that night, we sang Silent Night. Compared to our light-hearted rendition at PC Club, the song at the church was accompanied by a melancholy, albeit oddly cathartic air. Afterwards, many went to be blessed by a priest, half of us completely unfamiliar with the custom. When we returned to our seats at the end of the service, about a dozen Indians came to wish us Merry Christmas, and only one asked for a picture.
Is it really worthwhile to report that almost each of us hugged each other as we left the church around 1 a.m. on Christmas Day? At least five of us were crying in earnest, even those who were unaccustomed to such Christmas traditions. As we stood together at the end of the night, it was as though we had weathered a great storm where the precipitation came from people’s eyes, not the sky above.
When we arrived at the Khatri’s house that night, Pooja noticed “the gents” – Jordan, Jakob and I – were among the few with dry eyes. “Why is that?” she asked.
See, I’m not the type of person to outwardly express their sadness. Only at select moments on this exchange have I even come close to tears – before my flight to Nagpur after ten hours in the Mumbai airport in July, after Mayank left home in September, and while talking to my mom in October, hearing her voice for the first time in three months.
I felt compelled to respond to Pooja’s comment. “Just because there’s not water coming out of my eyes doesn’t mean I don’t miss my family!” Because, dry eyes or not, I really did.
And so did every other exchange student I was with that night.
There’s a chalkboard at Modern School onto which inspiring sayings are often written. One came to mind as I looked back on our Christmas night:
“Shared sorrow is half the pain, and shared happiness is twice the joy.”
We shared a lot with each other that night – our food, our homes, our personal stories, our personal space. We shared in our sorrow and we shared in our happiness. Essentially, we were sharing ourselves.
In spite of all the reasons I had to be sad, that’s why I was happier than I’d ever been on Christmas Eve.
Four hours after falling asleep, the alarm on my watch woke me around seven on Christmas morning. There was no rush downstairs towards a thickly ornamented Christmas tree, no pile of presents off which to rip red wrapping paper, no cold cocoa left half-sipped on the dining table next to a thank you note from Kris Kringle.
But why focus on what this Christmas didn’t offer when there was so much more that it did?
The product of the past day’s media coverage had been manifested in the morning’s paper. I was pictured posing with the others, my palms together over my head for no reason but the aesthetics of the photo. Two other pictures were shown with the accompanying article, but the highlight was the given caption. France, Germany and Canada had apparently been forgotten; according to the caption, the performing Rotary students apparently hail not only from the USA, but also from Sweden and Japan.
So what was it? Did we get new exchange students overnight, or had there been some secret cross-continental emigrations courtesy Santa’s sleigh?
Journalistic inaccuracies laughed aside, we said goodbye and began our search for separate autos home. Amanda, Anaïs, Nisha and I decided to share a ride, given the proximity of our homes. With activity on the streets this time of day scarce, finding an auto was proving to be a challenge. Rarely did anything pass us on the street, let alone an auto. The few our eyes could catch were just taunting us, full and unable to accommodate us. It was a solid ten minutes before we flagged down an auto driver that would give us a reasonable rate for a ride home.
Halfway home, that is.
The rickshaw came to a stop on an empty street, and I knew as soon as the driver turned to us and said “No petrol” that I had another signature moment in my already memorable holiday. I doubt I’ll ever again be stranded in a rickshaw on Christmas, and as the situation resolved itself minutes later when another rickshaw came by, I was slightly disappointed. Couldn’t there be some unexpected twist or epic encounter, like our ride getting stuck in quicksand or chased by a horde of wild elephants?
It was in relative peace that I jogged home from where the second rickshaw dropped us. I could have walked, but it seemed more prudent to run as quickly as possible. Once again I became self-conscious, wondering what the few locals on the street were thinking of the blue-jean clad foreigner jogging through Nagpur on Christmas morning. Patches of sun made their way through the trees and cool air blew softly across my face. Normally caught in a tangled mass of pillows, blankets and dreams this time of day, the morning’s atmosphere was another blatant, refreshing contrast to my ordinary life.
Most members of my host family were not yet awake, but I wished Merry Christmas to those who were. Running on four hours of sleep, the double bed in my room tantalized me with its comfort, but I sat on it quite upright and finished wrapping my gift."
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