A Tale of Two Christmases
The two enclaves of the east and west coasts of India have strikingly similar Christmas traditions.
It will be an extra special Christmas for me this year, as I host my folks and my partner’s family for the first time at my home in Pondicherry. My family is catholic while his parents have been part of an ashram for many decades, yet it is Christmas that we are all coming together for. Nothing is ever too bizarre for India. Christmas was celebrated in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram while it was led by a Frenchwoman Mirra Alfassa, known as the Mother by her followers.
In the last 6 years, since I shifted into Pondicherry, I have always headed back to Goa to be with my mother. This year, as I decorate my home and plan for a big Christmas dinner, I try to figure what the Pondicherry Christmas experience is? I am curious to learn about the traditions of the festival in this small coastal town with a French colonial past, strong Tamil culture and the spirituality of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville.
When I asked Dilip Kapur, founder of Pondicherry based Hidesign, what Christmas was like, his face lit up with a big grin. “It was the one day in the Ashram when everybody got a gift from Mother. We would all gather at the end of the boulevard, on an open ground, at the center of which was the largest Christmas tree of Pondicherry. Mother would be seated by it and each of us would go up to her to receive our gift.”
The Ashram, focused on developing one’s spiritual and physical self, believed in a frugal lifestyle, far from the capitalist idea of gifting. I wondered what each gift contained and was unsurprised by his response. “We received all kinds of little things - pencils, old tennis balls and lots of our favorite cashew toffees. Half the fun was in exchanging our gifts with each other. Every small thing was special coming from Mother.” I imagine this scene, all the Ashramites in their crisp shirts, color-coded shorts and kitty caps; the spirit of Christmas bringing everyone together.
The Highlights of Christmas in Goa vs Pondicherry
How different from my experiences in Goa; where Christmas was a month long affair. From building papier mâche cribs, carol singing, polishing the furniture and most importantly making sweets to distribute after mass, to relatives and neighbors. Recipe after recipe of sugar with egg or flour or milk and coconut to knead, stir, melt and shape into sweets that were then cut into geometric shapes or painstakingly molded into fruits, flowers, vegetables or astronomical forms.
As a former French colony, Pondicherry has a sizable Christian population, mainly Franco-Indians, an interesting community of persons of mixed heritage. Over tea one evening, I chatted with two long time friends, from the Franco-Indian clique, to learn about Christmases past. Both friends are part of the aristocracy of the town, known for their excellent cooking skills, but who demurely wished to stay unnamed. As the church bells chimed in the distance, I was transported back home, on the opposite coast of India, hearing the names of sweets and traditions that Pondicherrians practise which would fit right in any home in Goa, 1000 kms away from here.
Goan classics such as kul kuls, made from dough pressed down with a fine toothed comb, rolled and then deep fried, dodol, stirred for hours is a mix of pounded local black rice, coconut milk, ghee and sugar (in Goa we prefer palm jaggery). I was astonished to hear that bebica, what we call bebinca in Goa, is also baked here. Back home, bebinca is a painstakingly slow-baked cake, made of layers of coconut mylk, eggs and caramelised sugar. Here in Pondicherry, they sometimes skip the layers, an omission that would be sacrilegious in Goan kitchens.
A Christmas platter of sweets here in Pondicherry could well be one that is exchanged in Goa. There’s the international favourite — fruit cake made from dried fruits soaked in liquor months in advance. I was told that back in the day, families would prepare their cake dough and send it to the local baker to have it baked on wood fire. On Christmas eve, the head servant would proudly bring it back, covered in a napkin embroidered by the women of the family. The platter would also have kul kuls, dodol, chocolate bon bons, almond dragées (nuts coated in sugar) and back when the French were still around, nougat.
My favorite Christmas sweet from Goa is marzipan made with cashew nuts, so I was curious about Pondicherry’s pandelots. Unlike the smooth, chewy cashew toffees that the Ashram makes, pandelot is made from roughly pounded cashew nuts. “The trick is in pouring the sugar syrup at the right temperature over the nuts,” says one friend. “Once you mix it up a bit with semolina, you have to quickly flatten it while it’s still warm and then cut into a rhombus.” chipped in the second.
Back in Goa, we always had a large coffee to keep us up for midnight mass (it never worked), but here in Pondicherry, I was advised to try Mulligatawny soup. Mulligatawny — a Sri Lankan soup that passed into Tamil Nadu during the British Raj is an anglicised translation of ‘pepper water’ or ‘millagu tani’. A sort of rasam mixed with chicken or mutton with vegetables. After mass, families gathered for a mostly French assortment of soupe à l'oignon (onion soup) or canapés of homemade chicken liver pâté and lots of gâteaux (cake) with wine while gifts were opened around the tree. However, Christmas morning was always a Tamil affair of appams (rice crepes with a thick centre), either dunked in plain coconut mylk or with an egg cooked on it (mutta appam).
A Classic Pondicherry Christmas Meal
Back to my mission to serve a classic Pondicherry dinner for my family this Christmas, I asked my new friends what I should put on my table. “The main dish would have to be roast canard (duck) or turkey stuffed with bits of ham, beef or bacon,” says one friend while the other adds, “make sure it is thoroughly spiced with garlic and pepper”. The sides would have to be potatoes or coconut rice, which is excellent with ball curry. An easy dish for me to make, as my mother, an East-Indian from Bandra has an excellent recipe using bottle masala to marinate the minced beef. My Franco-Indian friends insisted that I must have a salade de Pondichéry, made from boiled potatoes, beets, eggs and onions, tossed in a no-fuss vinaigrette but it would be the mustard sauce that I would need to ace. I attempted to ask for a recipe, but with a chuckle, the conversation was politely steered into another direction. Every housewife rightfully guards her sauce mutarde and I would just have to figure this one out on my own.
I wondered if I could find any of these sweets in Pondicherry now, but it is no longer easily available. The two friends get nostalgic speaking of Magazin Millet, a grocery store by the Cluny Convent on Rue Romain Rolland, which stocked imported French ingredients such as cheese, chocolate, praline de dragées, nougat and a range of French wines. While sweet wine was made at home, stocked in large earthen barrels, for Christmas, a Milk Punch was made from orange liqueur and distilled milk. When the French left in 1954, shops dependent on imports disappeared. With the migration of the Franco-Indian community to France, the traditions diminished.
Just like the rassoule, a spicy, minced meat puff, the traditions of Pondicherry are multi-layered. I feel comforted by the commonalities of the traditions of Goa and Pondicherry, two coastal towns, colonized by different European rulers but in quintessentially Indian manner, bending the rules to make life more flavourful. My mother has promised to bring her homemade Goan sweets and my new friends will present theirs; we will all meet post Christmas to compare our spoils.
Ruth Sequeira heads Human Resources for Hidesign, lives in Auroville, reads widely and loves to cook for friends.
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