Professor Daizal Samad

Merry Christmas

EVER since early childhood, Christmas has always been my favourite season. It was not only the expectation of presents from my parents and from Santa Claus that was responsible for this; it was more about the whole spirit of joy that seemed to defy the depression that came with the times of year before and after Christmas.In Rose Hall Town in Berbice, there was a sense of rifts being healed, of wounds being salved. Year-round enmities being dissolved, yielding place to friendly and neighbourly exchanges. On Christmas Eve Evening, the strip of road that bisects Rose Hall became cluttered with shoppers and strollers. There was no room for vehicles. People who had not seen each other for the whole year beheld each other. There were hugs and laughter and joy. Left-off conversations were picked up and continued as if an entire year had not elapsed. Enquiries were made in genuine tones about relatives and friends.

Even strangers held hands. In the crowd, there were times when small children came loose from the clasp of parents. And there would be a shout from someone or other: “Aunty Doreen! Nah worry! Mahesh deh wid we!” And there was no worry, because it was all one family in deeply meaningful ways. No pick-pocket would dare ply his trade. Never!

The shops lining both sides of the road were adorned with images that we associated with Christmas. The glass windows of those shops were painted with images of Santa, with reindeer all seeming to frolic upon snow. There were Christmas trees dressed in fairy lights, and strands of cotton wool mimicking snow. I was told that these drawings and images on shop windows were “painted” by using shaving cream. I did not know what shaving cream was.

Through the doors of shops on both sides of the strip of Rose Hall Town, music filtered out onto the road — the strains of renditions from Nat King Cole and Andy Williams and Slim Whitman and Jim Reeves. The songs were like breezes soothing to my childhood ears. It was never loud or booming. It was not noise, and there were no vile speakers rearing up to tear the mind or rend the sky.

Over the years, that has changed. There is no respite from the noise. The sides of the roads are taken up with hills of noise-makers. Neighbourly greetings have been replaced with drunken revelry and boys proving their manhood by breaking beer bottles upon the road. Vulgar cussing has replaced friendly greeting, and people hold tightly to their purses and wallets. Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby have been replaced by “Bend Ovah!” and “Coolie Bai” and “Kick in she back door!” The great pity of it!

And yet, there is this present return to the kind of innocence that made people like me what they are. Having just returned from the capital city of Georgetown, and having been given the chance of being driven around to look around, I have witnessed trees alight with light bulbs around trunks. There were children playing in parks on swings and teeter-totters, their tiny giggles blessing my ears. The streets (Regent Street, Robb Street, Lamaha Street, and so on) are busy with a kind of controlled chaos. The police are about, but just to clear traffic or establish a preventative or protective presence. It is a fine thing to behold.

To those that have made this happen, we take a bow and say: “Thank you, and a Blessed Christmas to all good people!”