Silent Night, Holy Night(SUDESHNA MAJUMDAR) It was cold, bleak, biting weather on a Christmas Eve; the mist was roaming in its forlornness over the Doon Valley and had choked the road that lay before me. The passengers in the two coaches that passed by me were covered up to their cheek-bones out of fear for highwaymen who were found in plenty in that age of scarcity.

I was plodding down the road to bestow greetings on my friend living in a small settlement. The houses on either side of the road, as their old and neglected appearance denoted, belonged to the poor; some of whom were clustered round a bonfire to keep their weak and almost half famished bodies warm. I groped my way cautiously through a most intricate maze of narrow streets and ultimately reached the object of my search. The house, though small, was clean where I found my friend waiting for me. Soon hobbled in his wife on her crutches, for she had lost her right foot because of some disease. In spite of several protestations she soon brought a cup of coffee for me with her cheery smile and wished me a Happy Christmas!!

After I drank the coffee, my friend ushered me into a nearby house. The darkness and deep silence of the room was very solemn as death had been hovering there and had claimed a new victim on Christmas Eve. The inmate of the house had died of cold. His only relative, a son, was sobbing bitterly and wrapping his father’s corpse with a white shroud in the flickering light of candlesticks.

The boy put the corpse in the coffin. As soon as the coffin had been screwed down it was hoisted on the shoulders of four men who took it to the graveyard where there existed a number of graves without any name or tag. On the supplication of my friend I also said a prayer with trepidation. Silently, the coffin was lowered into the grave, for all roads ultimately lead to the graveyard and we are fellow passengers in this world. There was neither any tribute nor any speech from any quarter. The entire ceremony was over within minutes. While the big and the rich are mourned for days, the poor are forgotten the next day.

The gravedigger soon shoveled in the earth and after leveling the surface of the grave took up his spade and went off along with four others who had come to help us leaving me and my friend alone.

The night was closing in, and an eerie silence was creeping over the valley like an evil spirit in search of a prey. It was time to say good bye to my friend and make for home.

At midnight I heard the ringing of the church bell and the little children of an orphanage singing lusty carols in praise of the Child of Bethlehem, who lived amongst the poor and blessed them. But who today is willing to share the suffering and sorrows of the wretched, despised by all and pitied by none?

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