One deafening yell...then a crash...and I was on the floor,wrapped in a bundle...quilt,pillows, bedsheet n et al.
The whole house came running.
“What happened?” Baba asked, pulling me up through all that mess.
“He came. He actually came again this year. See I got my gifts. Cake, biscuit, a book and a letter.” I smiled.
Baba smiled too. So did Ma. We all smiled on the Christmas morning.
Christmas is there for that only, right? Its there to make you smile.
When you believe in the fairytale, you smile because your faith is true and when you don’t, then also you smile to the memories…and that faith stored up at some corner of your loyal heart which soon fills your entire mind and sets your imagination free…and ultimately brings a smile on your face.
Fortunately or unfortunately,I always used to get the same gifts from Santa every year…a cake, a packet of Britannia Good day, a book and a letter. The letter was the most fascinating part. Santa knew everything that I did year round and he wrote to me about that. He gave me innovative ideas about how to be all the more naughty…he asked me to be good…to love…believe and most of all he asked me to be happy. He also used to request a reply. I used to reply as well. And not knowing where to post it I ended up handing it over to Ma who always used to know where to find him.
Christmas was definitely a lot of fun...always.
It must have been class-III…the last time Santa ever wrote to me…and I never replied.
May be the child in me had started to doubt or the adult in me had started to grow up…what ever it might have been…I recognized Santa’s handwriting.
It was Baba. He had written the letter to me.
I was shocked, disappointed and hurt.
Hurt beyond imagination because not only was my Santa just fake but he also did not exist. He was simply not there. Not in my house…not in someone else’s house stuck up in a chimney…not in his factory at the North Pole. He just wasn’t there. Nowhere.The child in me lost its unadulterated faith and gained access to the world of doubts, disbelief and rationality.
It was hard to let Santa go... but as years passed…I realized that I don’t need to let go of him…rather I cant let go of him…because at some corner of my heart I’m still grateful to that bearded old man with his huge belly, red dress, reindeers, guffaws, elves and promises to return the next year, for making me imaginative and believing. For making me love, smile and happy. I am grateful to him because he actually taught me the lessons of life as I’d have preferred them. I love him because he kept his promise each year and came back to collect that piece of paper full of spelling mistakes and grammatically incorrect sentences or phrases..whatever you might call it...I love him because he never left me.
P.S:I never replied to him after that little discovery part…but however now…I really wish he would write to me one last time…I promise I'd reply.
