The great Indian store room has everything — all the things you can think of and millions you can’t even imagine — waiting to be summoned some day. We never need 99.9 per cent of the things. In my house, we still have the galla that my grandfather started his business with more than 50 years ago and a kadhai, the size of a bathtub.
In Madhya Pradesh’s Satna, a group of carollers was arrested for trying to convert people. W&B found out that the only thing it was trying to convert was an MP3 backing track to AAC.
Decembers and I just don’t get along. While you’re giving thanks for all the silver linings of the year, I’m hypnotised by the dark clouds. Like a show reel of the lowest points of my year — an almost debilitating heartbreak, every missed opportunity, and my most acute failures — that’re playing on loop in my mind.
Holiday films are to me what Tom and Jerry is to children, so I was overjoyed when Netflix released two holiday season films last week – The Princess Switch and A Christmas Prince. They’re my gloomiest holiday binge ever.
In the past few years, I’ve tried to maintain an indifference towards religious festivities, but growing up in a Catholic household, it’s impossible to escape Christmas in December. And Christmas carols are the month’s designated soundtrack.
Iciest regards from the North Pole! Santa has taken the time to pen down an open letter (as is the hottest fad these days) and it’s addressed straight to us.
Christmas as a Mumbaikar is a unique experience. We compensate for the absence of snow with tons of cotton spread unevenly on our (mostly plastic) trees. And the Christmas Parade is basically Ganpati Visarjan’s poor, underperforming cousin.
As the end of 2019 is upon us, I think I’ll give year-end parties a miss. This year, I’ll go back to celebrating how we used to – by setting ablaze an effigy in the shape of an old dude and Santa’s mask, that represents the year gone by. This uniquely Mumbai-Goa tradition is our version of the Burning Man.
Spare a thought for the Delhi bartender, that poor sod in charge of making your shots. This is the guy in the line of fire, when trigger-happy Dilliwalas set out to party.