When I was a little girl, my days were covered in snow. My sister and I were two brown girls in an ocean of white. We lived with six months of winter, with frozen eyelashes and sudden nosebleeds. Frost painted our windows every night and we walked home from school slowly in the almost-dark, trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues.

It would go down to -40°C in those Canadian winters, the exact opposite of a hot summer day in India. The ground beneath the snow was frozen solid and the night air was filled with a silence that was haunting. The sound of absolutely nothing. Every living thing had disappeared, waiting for the snow to melt away, waiting for the sun to rise again.

It was in the middle of this darkness that my parents made us celebrate an ancient south Indian harvest festival. A festival of sunshine and prosperity, abundance and joy.

They were not alone in this endeavour. They were joined by an assorted collection of souls whose roots, too, led back to the subcontinent. In those days, in that cold northern city, people would go through the phone book, line by line, and call up anyone with a familiar-sounding name. And, just like that, you and your homesickness had a new friend.

Thinking back now, I am touched by the spirit that moved all these uncles and aunties to get up early that morning, drive through the dark, gather together and try to recreate a harvest festival in the dead of winter.

I remember standing in the freezing cold, stomping my boots and watching my breath freeze. A fire was carefully coaxed to life, making sure that the smoke alarms didn’t go off. Winter scarves were tied up as turbans and people sat back on their heels, remembering what it was like to run around barefoot and chew on sugar cane. A pot of pongal was cooked slowly, and it was sweet and warm; tasting of wood smoke and longing.

The winter sun that day, weak and grey, would not rise for hours. No one outside this circle knew what we were doing or why. Our Canadian neighbours were fast asleep in their warm beds. This was a gathering of nostalgia, of loss, of loneliness. This was a festival of trying to teach children things that cannot be taught. Of loving something that no longer exists. Of reconciling to the fact that you have wandered so far from where you came from, that you may never be able to go back home.

When my parents made good on that threat to haul us back to India if we didn’t behave, festivals filled in with colour and the sound of everyone talking at the same time, with muffled explosions in the background.

Celebrations were now things that you could not escape. They were big, loud and all-encompassing. We got up early and wore new clothes and then spent the day feeling restless and scratchy. We would steadily eat the sweets that filled the house and, by evening, we were slightly nauseous but not unhappy. At night, we climbed onto the roof and watched the fireworks, mesmerised.

Hundreds of years ago, this way of celebrating — loudly, with no sense of proportion, like there was no tomorrow, bothered white people no end. Frustrated, sun-burned administrators wrote whiny letters back home. These Indians are crazy, they fumed. They have no food, they are dressed in rags but they spend all their money on their festivals.

I have kept the image of those crazy, raggedy Indians, spending money they didn’t have, close to my heart. I love whatever it is that made them celebrate life so loudly even when there was nothing to celebrate. I love that it didn’t make much sense then and it doesn’t make much sense now.

There have been days this past year when I have despaired. I have watched sticky black hate spread and flow. I have wondered, is this how the world will end? I have sat back and watched and no longer felt surprised.

I have tried to find comfort in the fact that this is an old place. The blood in my veins is crazy too. Our stories are old and strange and powerful. They have circled this world again and again. They connect us with everything that has happened and all that is yet to come. And they tell us that when faced with light, darkness will recede.

My bitter old heart reaches once again towards the familiar. Still wants to believe in something, anything. A returning king. A shower of light across the night sky. The sound of children laughing in the distance. Hope, as faint and weak as a winter sun, settles down next to me and refuses to leave.

Snigdha Manickavel is a Chennai-based writer

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW