One of my dearest friends has an Op-Ed in today’s Washington Post (page A29). Nitya, I’d be proud of you even if “Longing to Join in Christmas” hadn’t been published, but now that it has, Akka loves you even more, because obviously, like all good South Asian elders, my affection for you is directly tied to your achievements. 😉 I can’t think of a more perfect post for today (so let me get out of the way):
Christmas is the season when you are most likely to find yourself on a street of beautiful homes with twinkling lights, warm fireplaces and happy families outfitted in festive holiday sweaters, only to be filled with a yearning to possess not just the house but the lifestyle inside.
For my whole Indian American childhood in the early 1980s, I wanted a Christmas tree that way. And it wasn’t for the presents. It was for the lifestyle.
I wanted the Santa Claus, I wanted the holly wreath and I wanted the jolly elves who toiled in a workshop all year long. I wanted the sleigh bell-wearing reindeer on my roof. I wanted the colorful stockings hung by the chimney. And I wanted the jolly fat man to wiggle down our (nonexistent) chimney before he ho-ho-hoed his way across the night sky in a triumphant journey back to the North Pole.
From the warmth of my Hindu home, I always longed for that good old Christian magic — and not a holiday like Christmas but Christmas itself. I wanted to belong to the classroom party hosted by homeroom mothers in Santa hats, to know the words to the holiday songs that everyone knew, to feel the evergreen anticipation that never faded or fell from branches needle by needle.
My immigrant father, who’d recently come to America as a University of California grad student, was a man of little sympathy and extra principle when it came to the wants and woes of my childhood.
Santa isn’t real, he explained. And besides, we’re not Christian. We’re Hindu. If we celebrated Christmas, I would get you Christmas presents. But you can’t allow yourself to get caught up in materialism just because department stores try to sell you an idea that ultimately benefits them. Show some pride.
His pride argument was a precursor. It showed up a few years later when I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid and after that when I asked for a Nintendo.
My mother always understood my need for belonging without explanation. Like a Third World Christmas angel with a sparkling diamond nose ring, she bought me presents every year until I was old enough not to need them to defend my holiday humanity.
She’d tuck them deep into a corner of a closet my father never found, and she’d sign the gift tags “Love, Santa” in perfect penmanship. After all, it was my mother, never my father, who stood on the sidelines of the playground where I tried to defend my cultural differences, often met by horrified gasps of “How do you not celebrate Christmas?”
Of course, as I look back on the heaps of presents we got for Hindu holidays throughout the year, my father did have a point. But in that version of “A Christmas Carol,” he played a modern-day immigrant-edition Ebenezer Scrooge to my ever-earnest, emotionally limping Tiny Tim. Plus, I was 4. I was one of Santa’s truest believers. All I wanted was a tree.
Then one day a miracle happened.
My father had to work late in the lab, and a local den mother who looked after the Indian graduate students showed up unexpectedly on our doorstep. She was slight and distinguished by the scent of Oil of Olay and fried mustard seeds that followed her. Dark-skinned and wiry-haired, she wore cotton saris everywhere and talked to me in loud Tamil, as if she was afraid I would forget the language.
She was the last person I would have expected to be standing at our door clutching a five-foot-tall Christmas tree and shopping bags filled with tinsel, lights and ornaments.
“Nitya, hurry up!” she whispered as I stood there, open-mouthed and filled with the kind of joy usually reserved for Christmas morning.
The tree took up half of our tiny apartment. And, although it never quite went with the bronze Ganesha statue or the painting of a bare-chested, flute-toting Krishna, its majestic, scented silence spoke of glittering magic and twinkling dreams more powerful than even the most principled nonbeliever.
My father saw it, bah-ed, humbug-ed and, in protest of the tree, made me cry on Dec. 24 by eating all the foil-wrapped chocolate I’d hung for Santa to see.
Part of me lives forever in the irony and innocence of that season, when a skinny brown woman in a cotton sari had the courage to defy my father to give me everything a fat white man in a red suit could not.
P.S. That picture is from December of 2004, when I celebrated the holidays as the only Christian at a very Hindu home in New Jersey, which featured, yes, a Christmas tree (see it towards the back?).
pejorative, negative and demeaning connotations
if someone is a KKK outfit says it, yes. but someone on SM says it, prolly not. intent matters.
Sure, intent matters. But words evolve and meanings change and the ‘N’ word cannot be said by anyone but blacks, even without malicious intent or for that matter ‘macaca’, except if you are ‘brown’ and especially on this blog. ‘Third World’ hasn’t got to those hallowed levels yet, but clearly it was found derogatory enough to be replaced by ‘developing countries’ long back in official circles.
From the article:
I am not sure what the intent or context was in describing her mother as a Third World Christmas angel (whatever that means!). Perhaps she could have just said Indian or (South Asian=more PC) Christmas angel. But no she couldn’t be just Indian or even South Asian, but had to expand to include the whole ‘Third World’, but not the ‘First World’. I think that is what Neale in #46 is alluding to as “a little surprising”. Just a poor choice of words, in my opinion, in an otherwise fine article, where the unassimilable Hindu other is pandering to the mainstream American need to see the melting pot magic working on the 2nd gen of even this exotic other!
Nice article, Anna. To everyone at SM, Merry Christmas!! Plus, a moment of silence to remember the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Mr. Dynamite, the man whose hundreds of songs that have been sampled (thus launching the careers of several rappers around the world)…James Brown, who passed Christmas morning of pneumonia at the age of 73. (pause for silence)
LOL, you haven’t lived until you’ve listened to your local radio station, attempting to mix Christmas carols with “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” and “Get On the Good Foot.” Although a bittersweet Christmas, it was quite funky. JUMP BACK, WANNA KISS MYSELF! HEYYY!
Oneworld – Academics can say what they want, I go by what my friends (many of whom are activists) who live in various “Developing World” countries call it. BTW, much of that critique applies to Developing World (implies teleology), which is why people came up wiith the global south, but that never caught.
huey: thanks for mentioning this…this is what bummed me out this xmas… a true musical genius who will be remembered forever..
happy holidays… and our tradition for xmas–go to the movies..
ps nitya, KUDOS! you are awesome…
Happy Holidays everyone. To all of you who are at work this week, I stand with you in solidarity.
Tirupathi Gardens,
Sorry, stereotypes cant be wittier!!!
I would add a few words to the above Still the association is there and the urge to belong !!!!!! !!!!! and be a part of community celebration is a strong one.
Why dont we see similar enthisiam at celebrating Eid?? Can Eid be celebrated without the religious aspect of it??
On the other hand any festival that is an excuse to give gifts to kids and to show them that they are loved, is a great thing. If that good thing is combined with adults getting a day off from work, then all the more better.
I like Xmas because it brings out the best in Bill O’Reilly. But for the most part I agree with Razib’s contention on the secularity of the Holiday. In fact, the only ethnic group that I know of that staunchly doesn’t celebrate the holiday are the Jews. Not only do they have a similar holiday at the same time of the year, they’ve been able to position that holiday in the national consciousness (so people know of it, and tacitly “approve” of it – we sing jingle bells and dredyl in school all the same, growing up I made xmas tree ornaments as well as cutouts of manorahs) but still retain the religios purity of it (How many Non-Jews in the US celebrate it?) 1.4% of the population and they’re geniuses.
Happy Holidays everyone. To all of you who are at work this week, I stand with you in solidarity.
Some of us were forced to come to work this week. Satan doesnt take a break after Christmas and neither do we 🙁
a very nice article. congrats, nitya!
Tirupathi Gardens, next time write your own “wittier, funnier or just better conceptualized” article instead of knocking what others have written.
Definitely not to the extent of Christmas. But non-muslims in India do sometimes go to iftar parties, and eat the big feasts with their Muslim friends. In Turkey, to my knowledge, a lot of the secularized Muslims still celebrate Eid without a very marked religious aspect to it. Obviously, I think that if LARGE NUMBERS of non-muslims started joining in (simply just enjoying the food and the parties but without any religious aspect) it would create a big backlash among religious Muslims and their religious leaders.
First of all, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone warmth, friendship, love and happiness on the “Christian Diwali” 🙂
People, people. Please get with the bleeding-edge Financial Services lingo. The correct term is “Emerging Markets Christmas Angel”, thank you very much.
Only on Sepia Mutiny would commenters take a light-hearted, well-meaning thread and analyse things out of all proportion, Devil’s Advocate style. No pun intended. Despite my friend AlMfD’s remark, which makes the brother sound like a hero from Angel or Van Helsing 😉
nitya — a good story. i read it for the sentiment, not as an editor with a critical eye. i know what it feels like to deeply yearn to have a particular lifestyle. i feel pangs of it every now and then as an adult, though now i am able to use logic to talk myself out of such yearning. it wasn’t christmas i wanted either, but to feel genuinely a part of the excitement around the holidays. as a kid, we had a tree, exchanged gifts, opened our door to carolers; it stopped feeling genuine around age 10, when i somehow knew that my parents were just doing these things to appease me. by high school, we stopped doing the tree and sometimes the gifts came a couple days late. we officially stopped acknowledging christmas three years ago. in a way, it seems “right,” yet i still feel a loss somehow. but none of this has to do, as someone wrote dismissively, with my quest to balance my indian and american identity. i think i, more than many of my friends, have had much fewer problems in that arena, feeling very comfortable with both identitities even when in the company of the other group. for me, it touches on a yearning for a real community, something i’ve never had (and by community, i’m referring to any type of community, not just ethnic). i wrote about this on my own blog — i would be just as happy to celebrate diwali and other hindu holidays and indeed, i live in an area where there is a large community who celebrates these things with excitement at the local temples and community halls. but because our families are spread out throughout so many towns, my feeling of excitement around diwali, for example, is not quite the same as it would be if i could look outside and see my neighbors gearing up for the same celebration, or if i were out shopping and overheard a multitude of excited conversations about my holidays. my extended family almost all live in india, with the exception of a couple cousins in where else, new jersey. so … i am still left with that little pang around the holidays because i can’t even make it about family time. perhaps this will change yet again if/when i have children.
on another note, i woke up this morning to find a big packet my dad had placed by my bed, since apparently i still get mail here. i first read the words “informed consent” and what do i see next? “research title: relationship between acculturation and personality for asian indians.” 😉
I do not want to belabor this, because it is subjective. “Indian Christmas Angel” has a better rhythm.
Heh, Heh, Heh
Enough with the Bah Humbug-ging. The author of the piece commented on this very post, I’m sure she is reading this thread and she obviously knows how some of you feel about the “third world” phrasing. Move on, PLEASE. I’m the only one “manning” the bunker and this is boring me to tears.
I’d give anything to have an Op-Ed published in a major paper like the Washington Post. How many of us can say we’ve done something like that? And beyond that, where’s the holiday spirit? Y’all didn’t spike your egg nog well enough. Get crunked up and carry on!
Word, Jai.
The danger is exactly that. It will feed a stereotype on a wider scale. And I hope, Nitya, as a good writer, does understand praise and criticism.
Again, Happy Holidays!
I’m sure she does and I’m not saying you have to be nice to her just because she’s my friend or because it’s Christmas or because we should be proud of her or anything of the sort; I just hope that the criticism is constructive, that’s all. And if a point has already been made, that we find something else to focus on. I must say, I’m also a bit disheartened that so many of you would be so dismissive of a sentiment that others obviously have shared; this isn’t some lofty debate about our community, this is about how a FOUR-YEAR-OLD felt.
It was apparently too much for me to hope that holiday spirit would make this a fun, sweet thread. 🙁 I just wanted to put up something light for Christmas. It’s the holidays. I wish we could take a break from nit(ya)picking.
A viewpoint from one of that 1.4% HMF was talking about above (but certainly no genius):
It always takes me a bit by surprise when I hear people say that Christmas is a secular or American celebration. It never felt that way to me. Like many (perhaps most?) Jewish kids, I too went through a phase of wanting a tree and lights and stockings and cookies and Santa. What kid wouldn’t want their home full of all that fun stuff that he or she sees on TV, in movies, and in other kids’ homes? Like Nitya’s father, however, my parents held firm in their beliefs that it was not appropriate for a Jewish family to be celebrating Christmas in their own home. They too believed that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and therefore whether the symbols were pagan or religious it was all the same. Similar to Nitya’s father, it was an issue of “showing some pride,” or identity. For many Jews, on a primal level, assimilation equals annihilation. One look at the history of the Jewish people explains why. So while we enjoyed watching Rudolph and Frosty and Charlie Brown on TV, and we participated in caroling choirs at school, and went to see the tree in Rockerfeller Center and the department store window displays, it was from the perspective of an outsider learning about a culture that didn’t belong to us.
(Side note: Chanukah is NOT a similar holiday to Christmas. It’s actually one of the minor Jewish holidays, but has increasingly turned into a “parallel” holiday. Because it falls at around the same time, and because of the blanket of commercialism that envelops this time of year, it has become common to give gifts to children instead of the traditional “gelt” or coins. It creates an easier, softer way for parents to deal with “Why can’t we celebrate Christmas?” when you can tell your kids “Hey, you get Chanukah presents instead.”)
Fast forward to the present. I married a 1.5 generation Singh who didn’t know from Christmas until his family immigrated. His parents gave him the same kind of messages my parents gave me. You are not Christian. You are Sikh. Be proud of who you are. And now we are parents who are dealing with our own child’s desires for trees and lights and Santa, and who are now passing those same messages on – both out of respect to our own ethno-religious heritages, but also out of respect to others by not co-oping their holiday traditions. Because in being part of a multicultural family, we have also learned that there is a fine, fuzzy line between partaking in a culture or celebration that is not your own, and appropriating it as your own (I suspect that most Mutineers have had the experience of recognizing a culture vulture who is appropriating “Indianness” in a way that feels, for lack of a better term, “icky.”) And so, although each year we enjoy joining friends and family who do celebrate Christmas for their holiday gatherings, Santa Claus won’t be coming down our chimney.
Thanks, as always, for this thought-provoking forum. Peace
No, Goriwife, thank you. What an amazing comment– I love this space b/c of contributions like that. Happy belated Channukah. 🙂
Amitabh – I live in a majority Muslim country where people are quite religious, and Ramadan is actually an occasion where folks call all their friends, including non-Muslims, to join in the breaking of the fast and the fun and festivities (like all-night parties with games and music that last till the sohour, the pre-dawn meal). There’s a few hard-core religious types who are sticky about inviting non-Muslims to join in, but they tend to be in the minority.
I’ve yet to find a fun religious festival (Christmas, Eid, what have you) that I don’t like to celebrate, as a completely agnostic person – I’ve always celebrated Xmas with my American friends/ex. I can only assume that for desi migrants who lived in communities where they were in a distinct minority and had to worry about how their kids would grow up, concerns about Christmas trumping Hindu festivals added a level of anxiety that made them less sanguine about the ecumenical celebrating.
71
incase u didn’t know many hindus share the singh surname eg rajputs in rajasthan. I don’t know of all the communities but I’m pretty sure that is one of them and perhaps some other rajput/jat communities and also some communities in UP. 🙂 just some interesting info.
btw the friend looks good:) merry xmas.
But non-muslims in India do sometimes go to iftar parties, and eat the big feasts with their Muslim friends.
They do. Also, it is quite common amongst Hindus in North India to make simahi (a dessert often used for Eid) as many others (~14% of the population) are doing it on that day. The same holds for holi – almost every kid in India participates in India. Since many (or most) English medium schools in India are run by Christian missionaries, Christmas is celebrated across the board through your school in middle class India, it is also time to say thank you to your teachers too.
It is like Christmas in US – many people celebrate for being part of larger festivities. Belated Merry Christmas.
Goriwife, no offense, but I find it strange that you were willing to compromise with your ethno-religious heritage enough to marry outside your background (and this applies to your husband too), yet you draw the line at Christmas. Why is one OK and the other a case of annihilation? I went to a high school which was at least 40% jewish, and the rigidity with which some kids almost refused to even acknowledge that Christmas existed, always amazed me. I don’t fault you for not celebrating the holiday though.
If you’re referring to the accompanying picture, that’s Anna. She stated as much at the end:
yeah I was referring to that pic. oops made a faux pas. i guess i’ll have to replace friend with anna. btw
theanna looks good. parents are i guess, religious hindus but i always celebrated xmas. aren’t stereotypical hindus a bit more lax about this than say muslims, jews?, or even sikhs?ironically this conversation happened in my house, last night. After several rounds, the truth emerged that Mr. DD really wants presents as much as any kid could. However, I suspect we will stick to the following policy: discuss all of the different holidays of the season with future kid, allow them to invite little friends over to share in our Diwali, encourage acceptance of reciprocal invitations to join said friends in their families’ hanukkah or christmas celebrations, and support the differences and learning these experiences can bring. I don’t think others’ holidays have to be totally ignored or totally incorporated, there’s room to learn and observe, even participate, as goriwife said.
Regardless, happy holidays everyone, whichever holiday is special to you. Merry Krishna and Happy New Yaar 😉
Modest. Modest.
I grew up in a town with many Jewish residents, I’ve been to more Bar Mitvahs than I can count. Perhaps I was too young to notice it, but most of my Jewish friends would criticize me for wanting a tree up, etc…
It’s not 1950 anymore, the “fun stuff he or she sees on TV” includes Jewish traditions as well. I wanted to complain about going to Hebrew school JUST as much as I wanted to complain about CCD.
100% agreement. Malcolm X (the so called “anti-semite”) has said in his autobiography the most prominent case of assimilation is the German Jew. And used it as rationale why the so called Negro should reconnect to their roots in Africa.
This is what I meant when I said similar, but I agree I wasn’t clear. Irrespective of the historical origin, to someone outside both of those religions, Chanukah is more or less the “Jewish Christmas.” Like I said, the star of David was presented to me just as much as the Cross was.
The one drawback of atheism (yes, there is only one. ONE.) is a lack of festivitism. Now, one can take the decision (actually, you make decisions, don’t you?) to celebrate all religious festivals. This is both exhausting, and foolish. It denies one the enjoyment waiting for an annual piss-up brings. If every day was a holyholiday they wouldn’t be speshul. You’d be a religion-whore.
So. Atheists should thus celebrate the least religious, most-abused and most commercial festival of the year, Crimbo. Or as it’s soon to be officially known, X-mas. Shame I was working yesterday.
Have a nice time everyone, from the hoperfully-soon-to-be-less-absent BB.
there’s always Festivus, bongsy…
Brooklyn Brown, thanks for the childish response (“next time write your own ‘wittier, funnier or just better conceptualized’ article instead of knocking what others have written”). Sorry, I thought this board allowed criticism of popular representations of South Asian experiences in America. I’m sorry, but the idea that I have to offer an alternative or duck out of the game if I don’t like something which represents my own experiences is so immature. Do you also shout, “Get out of this country if you don’t like it!” when someone criticizes American policy? You seem to be doing some of that on your own blog – what alternatives do you offer to your criticism?
I’m sure Nitya is a grown woman who can handle criticism; you seem to be the one who needs to grow up.
And yeah, SM Intern and A N N A, go ahead and say it’s the holiday season and we should just “chill out” and stop twisting this oh-so-innocent story into more than it really is. A N N A, I never negated the author’s experiences as a girl. My only point was that it could have been better written. I know several other desi writers (including myself) who could have written something much stronger and less predictable, but it seems that WaPo is more interested in regurgitating the same ‘ol, same ‘ol to its easy-to-please, mostly white readership.
You can be simplistic and judge my tone as “too serious” and say that I’m “bitter” or something, but I’m neither of those things. I’ve been published in the WSJ and NYT, and really only want the best for my community (hence my criticism of this article). Maybe both of you need to chill out yourselves and just let people have a critical eye instead of trying to control every little comment on this board? I mean, your judgmental little nuggets about how people take everything too seriously on this board is getting a little old (“It was apparently too much for me to hope that holiday spirit would make this a fun, sweet thread. 🙁 I just wanted to put up something light for Christmas. It’s the holidays. I wish we could take a break from nit(ya)picking.”)
It’s the holidays…soooooo we should just smile and let anything objectionable pass on by? How was my criticism not constructive? Did I say Nitya was a horrible person who should be ostracised from the journalism profession? Should I have added smiley faces?
I know that a lot of you people know each other and stuff, but please, can we stop the disapproving clucks of the tongue when someone chooses to offer constructive criticism? This is supposed to be a space for sharing ideas, not a sorority.
Crikey, I didn’t realise it has become a real thing! I remember the episode and thinking I’d win all feats of strength no matter who I competed with, but never did I think my idle thought-boasting would be tested when Festivus becomes reality.
I don’t think the Brits do it. Seriously, with Christmas the way it is now – I don’t think anyone other than the most hardline non-Christians would have a problem participating in it.
Fine, I won’t comment on your obvious bitterness, but I will ask, “jealous, much?” It sounds like your problem is actually that SHE got published and YOU didn’t. And if you are so accomplished, how about a real name so that we in the community which you are so worried about can read your superior work in the NYT et al? Or is it too tempting to keep sniping anonymously?
I find it funny that my Hindu Brahmin azz goes around wishing everyone “Merry Christmas” but my Southern Methodist in-laws insist on using the more p.c. “Happy Holidays”.
I agree! Now do you actually have any to offer? Don’t fret: your mean old words already made poor widdle sorority girl-me cwy, so now that THAT is out of the way, feel free to get on with making a statement that doesn’t reek of trollery, thanks.
STFU, thank you for completely missing the point.
And being a woman who has been stalked via the Internet, I prefer not to give out my real name to complete strangers.
Plus, if I were to give out my name now, you’d only read my articles intent on bashing them, even if you thought they were good. So there’s no winning. If you really equate my criticism with jealously, then you’re obviously too dense for me to debate with. You just won’t get it, and will continue to blather on using your emotions as a conduit.
By the way, your parents gave you such a beautiful name.
This is so funny, and I would be surprised if many of us haven’t “been there” in terms of secretly wishing to buy into the Christmas spirit. And why not? Despite its overcommercialization, at its heart Christmas is about love, hope, and new beginnings. Maybe my heathen-ass is misinterpreting, but, unless you’re working retail, Christmas brings out a lot of joy and hope, and frankly, we could all use more of that.
I think my mom did “Santa” (sans tree, etc.) and stockings from ages 1-5, then had a bit of a religious reawakening and decided this was totally not ok. This of course made elementary school a lot harder (having to explain why I wasn’t allowed to participate in tree-making/ornament-making art activities or Christmas poems), but she came up with a fun solution: she used to bring entirely secular treats, decorations, etc., to my classes to celebrate Baisakhi, and she would help the other desi moms (all 2 of them) with coordinating Diwali celebrations. It was a great way to broaden people’s perspectives, but was also so much fun. Instead of being about exclusion (I can’t celebrate X because of Y), we all found things to celebrate together.
I think the world would be such a happier place if everyone celebrated everyone’s holidays. I totally think it is possible to separate the religious from the secular, particularly if you make an effort to know what the holiday is about. This is part of what I love about living in multireligious areas – even if there is a part of a holiday I can’t participate in, I feel like holidays/celebrations bring people together. I learn so much from others, but also, this process is entirely humanizing. It emphasizes how we can all find our commonalities among the differences.
Aside from this comment thread, what brought yesterday — not to mention my entire life to date — full circle was this:
It was pouring rain when I left work and I had no umbrella, so I got into a cab.
When I got out, without giving it a second thought, I said: “Merry Christmas!”
“Indian?” the cab driver asked me.
“Yes,” I replied, playing my part in a dialogue I’m sure the Mutiny has become all too familiar with.
“Nam kya hai?” he asked.
“Nitya.”
“What ‘Merry Christmas’?”
I usually don’t say Merry Christmas, but my issue isn’t really with the Christmas part. It’s with the “Merry” Part. Makes me sound like I should be at the Renaissance Fair sipping a fine goblet of Yorkshire Ale, talkin bout, “Have a gay ol’ merry christmas”
You don’t want a goblet of Yorkshire ale, you want a tankard. Or better still a yard or boot. Merry may be archaic, but when else can you say HO HO HO over and over? What a great syllable.
Man I wish I had a big round belly that shook when I laughed like a bowl full of jelly.
A N N A, how is this trolling?
I clearly said I didn’t mean to offend, and it doesn’t take an English grad student to extrapolate my criticism from the above.
But, since you too seem to be missing the point, please let me know if you need me to break it down.
It’s really easy to cast me as a troll, but considering my strongest criticism was, “It’s been done before,” maybe you are being a bit sensitive? I’d actually love to hear what you have to say about these repetitive trends in Indian-American fiction and non-fiction, but since it’s obvious Nitya is your friend and you are dead set on portraying me as flame, maybe I’m asking too much.
I swear to Ganesha that if you kids don’t play nice, I will pull this car right over and close this thread.
And if you were banned and you switched IPs, I’m looking at you. Not nice.
oh YEAH? like WHERE?
Seriously though Ms. Gardens, I think we’re all aware what’s been done and not done before, but I just think given the relevance of the day and the fact that such opinions are represented in a somewhat mainstream paper is what made it news worthy. As for rapport making criticisms less admissible, that’s just a facet of human nature.
The story might ring as banal within our community, but it’s news to your average white folk. Your average white folk shrieks in horror when they learn that there exist people in America that haven’t always celebrated Christmas (or now Chanukah), or at the very least, had it as a point of contention within their family. For them it was given, something that just was, something to never think about from any other perspective, but the way they always did.
SM Intern, given that the bunker is currently populated by only yourself and one other blogger, I suggest you go ahead and close this thread and enjoy the season’s cheer, which apparently does not exist amongst the masses this year. Even Mutineers deserve a day off now and then, and I’m sure both of you have things you would rather be doing.
I’m going to spike everyone’s Silk Soy Nog with som’n fierce so that we can calm down and really start gettin’ merry here.
Wishing everyone peace and love for the last remaining days of the year.
There’s a useful point lurking within Tirupathi Gardens’ critique. If you look at the New York Times styles section from this past weekend, the cover feature is about “How I learned to stop worrying and embrace Christmas” and it includes three or four first-person stories about just that: narratives of coming to embrace Xmas when one was previously disposed not to, whether for reasons of ethnicity or religion, parental influence, personal preference, etc. One particularly well-worn sub-narrative is the one of people of Jewish origin coming to terms with/accepting Christmas. Another is that of people who are leery of materialism and conspicuous consumption saying “screw it, we can have fun on Xmas too.” All these stories are perfectly fine and perfectly authentic; what’s interesting is that you get, say, a NYT feature package with four variations on that story and not a single counter-narrative.
Now, Nitya’s op-ed can easily be read in this context as participating in the same tendency. It doesn’t take anything away from the authenticity of Nitya’s testimonial. It’s just that such testimonials are pretty common at this season. Perhaps the variation of this testimonial coming from a desi, as opposed to a Jew or a socialist, is something that isn’t all that common yet in mainstream press, but the overall narrative is definitely out there.
I think Tirupathi was pointing this out and perhaps bemoaning the lack of counter-narratives out there in the media around Xmas these days. That’s a fair point and one worth talking about.
What made Tirupathi’s comment unproductive (by causing everyone to jump on her, and the nasty back and forth that followed) was by calling Nitya’s piece bad writing. With respect to the quality of writing, Nitya’s piece is actually excellent. Nitya is a terrific writer. It’s not bad writing, it’s writing ona theme that perhaps some people find is quite common out there in this season, one that raises issues of conformity and materialism and all the other issues that Christmas raises, and that invites counter-narratives, rather than nasty flame wars.
Peace out, y’all.
Word up. There’s quite a lot of grist for the mill here, if this is the right venue, I’m not sure. Maybe another thread where these topics can be opened up might work better
respects,