SFV Christmas - A Fitting Finale to 2018

Holding any event is a project in itself, and no less when it is planned only a week before. And challenges are to be met with responses - and befitting ones at that. Precisely that is what Neetha Kurien, Ambica Suresh, and other volunteers did when it came to celebrating Christmas.

Initially, with no more than 25 to 30 responses for participation, the ladies were apprehensive if it would at all take off. But undaunted, they went ahead, and a stage came when they had to close registration lest the event became a case of more performers and less audience. About 120 persons were registered, including children, adults and volunteers. No doubt, the enthusiastic crowd far outnumbered them.

Both Santa Claus and his junior did a very good job.

More so when, between them, they had to hand hundreds of ‘surprise’ gifts to children whose parents had bought for them without their knowledge.

When Santa Claus had somewhat unwound himself, I walked up to him and whispered into his ears: “Could you disclose your identity, sir?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered promptly. But hearing his sound, my friend identified him. Yes, Ravi Parthasarathi, Dr Aarti's husband, had volunteered to don Santa Claus. As for the junior Santa Claus, I am told it was Harsh, Ambica’s son.

Carol singers, attired in traditional style, circumambulated the complex singing merrily the well-rehearsed, “Mary Boy’s Child, Jesus…’, “O Come All Ye Faithful…’;  “Jingle Bells…” I could hum the last number with them. Not surprising, it reminded me of The Sound of Music genre of  Hollywood movie.

Later everyone assembled at the amphitheatre where the programme ended with a candle dance and a film number by teenagers.

Participation in such events does take you down the memory lane. Aunty and I visited the Vatican City not once, but twice. While going around, ask for a route from a Malayalee sister passing by, and she would be all smiles (you can literally count her 32 teeth), and goes out of the way to guide you. So happy is she to see another speak Malayalam in another land.

After great deliberations we both decided to climb to the top through the never-ending spiral stairway. On climb-down we swore never to repeat it because it was arduous. Strange as it may seem, we did it on our second visit too.

Lourdes, in France, was yet another place that we visited on another occasion. We felt it would be yet another church with its accompanying grandeur and magnificence. But only on arrival we realized it was a major Roman Catholic pilgrimage centre, with a dip in the holy running water providing miraculous healing. Aunty was taken to the ladies section.  I was taken to the other where volunteers unclothed me putting on me a bear minimum cloth. Asking me to lie down, two WWF-type men lifted me by my hands, and the other two by legs, swung me back and forth twice before dipping me in the biting-cold flowing water running through a tub. It is supposed to have miraculous healing effect. All I know is that my acute dust-allergic non-stop sneezing came to an abrupt halt thereafter. Touchwood.

‘Today Lourdes hosts around six million visitors every year from all corners of the world. It is the second most important center of tourism in France, second only to Paris, and the third most important site of international Catholic pilgrimage after Rome and the Holy Land.’

Anyway, back to SFV, if there were to be a contest in Bangalore for the most secular apartment complex, chances are SFV will take the cake.