Is Santa for Real?

Knowingly or unknowingly innocence gets killed in all of us. Somewhere deep down we regret that a lot. Remember the days when Santa Clause and Tooth Fairy were true and one of the much awaited visitors? As we grew up, these angelic characters faded away behind the curtains of so-called reality. Either we caught our parents secretly putting gifts for us tagging it with Santa’s signature or we got mocked down by our friends for believing in these fantasy creatures. Both ways, a little hope is us died and suddenly world became more ‘practical’. I don’t say that we shouldn’t face the reality and should always remain in a make believe world where everything is ideal, but I beg you to keep that child alive in you, the child that makes you believe in miracles. Because it is this child that will help you sail across the most troubled storms of your life.

Here’s an article I came across. It’s about an eight year old girl called Virginia, who was hell bent on keeping her Santa real, despite being teased by her friends. She didn’t want to give up on her belief in miracles. Somehow I could relate to it. I guess you might also spot a little part of you hidden in this article.

Back in 1897, New York’s newspaper, Sun, was the most credible source of information to people. It was believed that ‘It’s true if it’s in the Sun’. So, little Virginia sent a letter to the editor of Sun, asking him to clarify once and for all if Santa was for real. Here is her letter and what the editor Francis Pharcellus Church replied to her. Both of these letters went into print and became history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial.

Virginia’s letter: Dear Editor, I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.Papa says,  'If you see it in THE SUN it's so'. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O'HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET Response of the Editor: VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism  of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can  be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether  they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere  insect,an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him,  as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and  knowledge. Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and  generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your   life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were  no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS.  There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable  this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight.   The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!  You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on  Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus  coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no  sign that there is no Santa Claus.  The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.  Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no  proof that  they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders  there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is  a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united  strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy,  poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal  beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there  is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand  years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will  continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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Merry Christmas friends

Don’t stop believing in miracles. There is a Santa who sees all the good and bad you do, and he rewards you with miracles when you need them the most.

The Big City Therapy

Big cities are a blessing sometimes. Living in a small place like Goa, that too in a meager fifty something acre campus, our scope of thinking gets limited. Sometimes it doesn’t even cross the hostel room where one can spend hours wondering about things that are may be just a myth. Myths that haunt, that divert us from reality and restrict us from looking forward to something. Since there is almost negligible exposure to the outer world, these thoughts create a claustrophobic cell around us, which, after sometime, make it impossible to find a crevice that may let some light in. Things just keep getting darker. At such a time, coming to a big city, sprawling with people, embedded with tall structures, rushing at fast rhythm which leaves no time to stay put and think, strangely becomes the source of the kind of oxygen you badly needed. In the crowd you feel tiny and all the troubles that you imagined you had, seem to dissipate in it. All your focus goes into matching your pace with that city. Unlike the walls of the hostel room that echoed your thoughts, the buildings around absorb them to a great extent. The voice in your mind is silenced by the noise everywhere.  Now sometimes, this is more relaxing than sitting on a beach at sunset. Truly said, everything has its own benefits and excess of everything is… dangerous.

(In)Carnation

On an eventful Thursday, which we girls dedicated to various indulgences like wandering, eating and shopping, I came out of a crowded mall in Panjim hand tied with shopping bags. A short spell of rain had given the road outside a rejuvenating makeover and everything glistened as the droplets retired from their surfaces into the soil that flaunted its new scent. As my friends stirred around to find our car in the parking lot, I got imprinted by an innocently beautiful white carnation sitting coyly in the basket of a flower seller. I just couldn’t move on. So I bought it, for myself and no one else. And now, it soothes my room with its tranquil beauty.

Carnation belongs to a family of flora, Dianthus that means ‘a heavenly flower’ or ‘the flower of the Gods’. The effect it has in my room justifies the claim. In the limited luxury of my hostel room, I could just offer an empty mineral water bottle to this flower as a vase. But it compliantly adapted to it and now smiles at me as it dances with playful monsoon breeze that pays regular visits through my window. I never thought that looking at a simple flower that seldom gets unnoticed in bouquets, can be so delightful. It seemed as if it understood my displeasure and yet it encouraged me to smile.

Like many other flowers, each type of carnation stands for a meaning. Where light red carnations speak of admiration, dark red announce deep love and affection. The white ones whisper pure love and good luck, while purple ones are for whimsicality. The pink carnations have a holier significance. It is said that when Lord Jesus carried the Cross, Virgin Mary painfully shed tears and the places where these tears fell, carnations sprang up and bloomed. So, in many countries, pink carnations are gifted to mothers on Mother’s Day! It’s so amazing to know that how many meanings and stories are associated with so many things around us that we don’t even notice in our daily lives. I guess it is truly sad, ‘God is in details’. And right now, I am in love with this white carnation that is for me and only me.

Summer of 2012 - 1

After boarding Goa bound flights since last one year, boarding Delhi-Mumbai plane was nothing less than a cultural shock. In flights going to Goa, our co-passengers are mix of holidaying families, honeymooning couples and ultra-excited youngsters looking forward to a dil-chahta-hai-flavour holiday. And we, the students of Goa Institute of Management (yes we are real and normal students who STUDY here, and our classes are NOT conducted in the beach shacks… mind it), appear to be a depressed bunch of overdressed people. But flight G8-229 showed us how we have still not reached the pinnacle of sophistication, despite one year in a ‘serious’ management school. Being a Monday morning flight, the plane had an overwhelming attendance of erstwhile ‘blackberry boys’. The skilled and high income section of our workforce, dressed in crisply creased western business formals, titter-tatting on their smartphones with one hand and carrying all varieties of laptop bags in the other. I and my friend Karishma looked at them and then at each other and then at ourselves, ending the tour with a hesitating gulp. Same thought echoed in our thought clouds, ‘Dude! We are so not corporate material yet… And that is our future!!’

Anyways, that did make us feel a li’l younger amongst our co-passengers. We hurriedly grabbed our seats and even before the flight took off, both of us dozed off. I woke up to a ting, a sound which the push button above your head politely and sophistically makes to call the stewardess for you. Outside the window, a serene stream of white cotton candy clouds rested peacefully, giving us an illusion of motionlessness. That soothing picture was suddenly interrupted by a rocky mountainous terrain, just like the entry of a villain in a hindi film immediately after a romantic duet. But they seemed more like dependable guards than evil sentinels, as following them were the high rising buildings of Mumbai suburbs interjected by comparatively grass level slums. With this sinuous skyline I knew that we have reached Mumbai.

As I thumped my Delhi-feet into the Mumbai airport, a huge sign with a Gateway of India picture greeted us saying ‘Welcome to Mumbai’. I am always happy when I come to this city. Although I don’t know this place well, I can never be an alien to this land where I took my first steps, which would be somewhere in Goregaon East. We had no time to rest as we had to immediately proceed with our shelter hunt in Thane. So we took a cab, loaded our massive luggage and commenced with our project. Traffic jammed Mumbai kept surprising us with a random sequence of warm and cold breezes and salt-dunes replaced slums and buildings, while we tried to keep a mental record of what came when, Santa Cruz, Ville Parle, Andheri etc. etc. Finally, sometime after paying the toll tax, we reached Thane.

We spent the whole day searching for accommodation. At everyplace we went to, after calculating its distance from office and station, and our monthly payable, I would try to form a mental picture of me inhabiting that place. Some places fell short on surroundings, while the others smugly mocked our tiny pockets. Unfortunately, the search is still on, but not for long I hope. I have seven hours long induction to attend tomorrow, and unlike classrooms, I can’t afford to sleep during it. So here I am, signing off from the first post of my ‘Summer of 2012’. Ciao!