The carols come to me like a leitmotif, prior to every Christmas season. I wake up to them in the morning, as these hum tunes?. This is the third Christmas season that I will be away from Shillong, my pretty little home town? am I losing you?

EVERY TIME before the advent of the Christmas day, say a month before, my mind ripens to memories. Memories of Christmas carol singing and being invited for tea or dinner by family friends. Christmas Eve is more reminiscent, in the sense that this is time when the city is feverish, hectic, cars dash, carol singing youth are aplomb and motor bikes rush as if it were a racing competition. People smiling, bonhomie, and all ill feeling banished from this good earth.

 
My mind races to my home town, that pretty home town, snuggled among hills and pine trees. The town (city they call it now), normally quiescent but noisy before this day. Songs, music rend the air. As a child I would rush to the door to catch a glimpse of carol singing groups. Some of would come to the house. Memories do wonders; they cannot separate you from time, place and space. They give you that imagination to think, retrospect and even write. That is what I am doing now. What great fun to live in the past!
 

And every year around this time I think of Christmas, chilling pines, Santa Claus around somewhere, and those ubiquitous gifts. Parties, the chiming of the church bells too. There are songs humming and winter coming....It is fun all the way, one forgets the misgivings one had, and even foes have smiling faces! The city, the town is resplendent. In a multi cultural ambience there is amity, unity and camaraderie.
 
I for one cannot forget or banish Christmas from my mind. And this has nothing to do with my culture or religion: I maybe a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu. But Christmas is ingrained in my mind like roots of a tree, or saplings of a plant. The carols come to me like a leitmotif, prior to every Christmas season. I wake up to them in the morning, as these hum tunes in my mind, body and soul. God bless them!
 
This is the third Christmas season that I will be away from Shillong, my pretty little home town, with its share of ups and downs, am I losing you?
 
This year, however, after all the violence that has taken part in our country, I can only pray this - Christmas...