Indian Christmas: Essays, Memories, Hymns brings together personal accounts of Christmas from across India, showing how worship, food, family memory and community participation take distinct forms. Edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle, the anthology includes Christian, Hindu and Adivasi perspectives; its stories offer a portrait of varied experiences, not a single template for how India celebrates.
What the anthology brings together
Published by Speaking Tiger, Indian Christmas combines essays, images, poems and hymns, written in English or translated from other Indian languages. Its geographical reach includes Goa, Nagaland, Kerala, Delhi, Ranchi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Shillong and rural Jharkhand; photographs also extend the book’s scope to Aizawl, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi. The publisher notes poems in forms including the Pillaitamil tradition and Punjabi tappe-boliyan. These different modes and places make the book a collection of lived accounts rather than a single history or a guide to uniform customs.
The Scroll.in review by Sayari Debnath, published on December 24, 2022, draws particular examples from contributors’ memories. Those episodes are best read as individual stories: a family’s food or a school’s celebration can illuminate a place without standing in for everyone who lives there.
Food, exchange and local memory
Family recipes and festive baking
Contributors recall family-specific cakes and dishes alongside local breads and curries. The review also describes cake being baked in ammunition boxes in Nagaland. Rather than presenting a standard Christmas menu, these details show how celebration is shaped by household practice, local ingredients and the circumstances people remember.
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Damodar Mauzo’s exchange with neighbours
Writer Damodar Mauzo recalls exchanging food with Christian neighbours at Christmas and Chawath. His account makes the sharing itself central: a festival can be experienced beyond the households observing it, through relationships and reciprocal gestures. The review quotes Mauzo describing the lesson as “to learn to hold each other, to respect the traditions of unity and amity, and keep intolerance and religious hatred at bay.”
School celebrations and who belongs
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar remembers Christmas celebrations at school in Ghatshila. His account includes not only the festivities but also class dynamics and exclusion he observed. That complication matters: a public or school celebration may create a point of connection, yet participation and belonging are not automatically equal. The memory resists a sentimental picture in which every shared celebration erases social divisions.
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A church beneath the trees in Simdega Sawai
Mary Sushma Kindo describes the “girja” in Simdega Sawai as a large, open-air verandah among trees. The image differs from familiar expectations of a formal church building and anchors worship in its setting. It is one contributor’s recollection, not a claim that churches across Jharkhand—or Adivasi Christian communities—share the same form.
Pluralism in context
The accounts bring Christians from different communities into conversation with Hindu and Adivasi writers. The resulting picture is plural without suggesting that religious difference disappears: food can be exchanged, neighbours can participate in one another’s celebrations, and people can still face exclusion or hostility.
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Debnath’s 2022 article also situates these stories amid attacks on Christians and churches and accusations of forced conversion reported in that period. Those references describe the article’s 2022 context, not a current incident tally. It reports that Christians made up 2.3% of India’s population, attributing the figure to the 2011 census; that is a historical statistic cited by Scroll.in in 2022, not a current population estimate.
In the anthology’s introduction, Jerry Pinto writes that “any birth is beautiful and makes the world seem like a generous, beautiful place that is ‘full of promise and hope.’” Nirupama Dutt similarly frames birth as both present and future: “For this is a birth, and women understand birth more than anyone else, understand that this is the present and the future – this could be Hope, and it must be protected and celebrated.” Together with Mauzo’s appeal to amity, these passages express the ethical possibility the collection finds in celebration, while its personal accounts keep that possibility grounded in specific lives.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Edition details
Speaking Tiger lists a hardback edition of Indian Christmas: Essays, Memories, Hymns, edited by Jerry Pinto and Madhulika Liddle, ISBN 9789354473524. The publisher lists 216 pages plus a 28-page photo insert and displays a price of ₹699; the price may change.
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