Christmas in Mumbai



Brightly decorated trucks are a common sight

Though my first thought about christmas in a far far place away from my family, where I would usually celebrate with a visit and a christmas dinner, was to just let it pass and forget about it as soon as I could.



Basis for this thought was the likelyness that christmas will not be celebrated in a country like India where the majority of the population is Hindu or Muslim, or maybe Sikh.




Colleagues decorating their cubicles

  As it turns out, christmas is celebrated more and more. The Indians like to celebrate anything. Especially if it means they can decorate things. When vibrant colours (like we do have with christmas, especially bright green and red, and gold, silver for decorative bells and balls) are involved the Indians do love to integrate a holiday into their lives.



The result of a cubicle decoration



Christmas is of course a celebration recognized worldwide, it is the most prominent holiday of the christian faith, and even though only about 2% of the Indian people are christian (still a hefty 24 million people) some of these go back to the advent of christianity and claim they are decendents of Thomas who visited India a score of years after christ's demise. Many of course are converts from the time the British waved a sceptre over India.



This makes christmas a holiday which is also recognized in India, and quickly being adopted within the life in the current season.


 

Gingerbread house in the hotel lobby



Christmas hats are worn here without shame



I have had to explain a lot that the way that christmas is viewed nowadays in India is mainly the way it is done in the USA, as Santa Claus is not an ageold traditional figure unless you only count the previous centuries. As such the way I have always celebrated it in 



A huge christmas tree in
the lobby stairways of the hotel



the Netherlands does not involve a jolly jellybellied red suited man, nor presents under a tree. It involves a visit to the church and a cosy
christmas lunch with hot chocolate and sausagebread my mother likes to bake. Then in the evening a christmas dinner together with the family.



Hotel hallways decorated
with christmas bells



What I see in India however is rather fun. The warm (though for Indians rahter chilly) weather denies me the real sense of christmas, especially with the knowledge that in the Netherlands there will finally be a white christmas after the many years that snow evaided the christmas date.



Indians love to decorate as I noted, this is shown in

  the brightly decorated trucks and cars, and during christmas they put up lights when and wherever the can. At




Decoration can have themes



Like that of a laundry



work they decorate their cubicles which attract many attention from colleagues. There are brunches at the

  hotel, which I plan to make use of, and more importantly, I'll go christmas shopping with friends.

Christmas in Mumbai can be good, but in its own way.