Festivities over faith

During this time of the year, Park Street is a riot of tinsel and fairy lights. The air smells of fruitcake, wine and goodies as crowds gather for the festivities. There's no breath misting in snowy air and Santa doesn't arrive in a sleigh but nevertheless, this is Christmas, Kolkata-style.

Few places embody the culture of an entire people in the way Kolkata does. What better example than Christmas that adds an extra charm to this wondrous city, making it more of a social festival rather than a mere religious affair.

This spectacle has also never seen an age-limited demographic of visitors. From vivacious teenagers to grandmothers with toothy grins, everyone finds a spot to enjoy themselves.

Given Kolkata's diversity of religions and culture, Christmas celebrations are not just restricted to Christians alone.

Non-Christians, in thousands, attend the midnight mass, visit Park Street, Allen Park and the Bow Barracks, exchange gifts and buy plum cakes.

Kolkata's Christmas is incomplete without a rich fruit cake, preferably one from Nahoum and Sons, the legendary Jewish bakery in the city. Every year, the queue at their bakery stretches around the block. The dense fruit-and nut-studded Christmas cake often runs out before the line does. Remember, this is a Jewish bakery selling Christmas cakes!

It is the last surviving Jewish bakery in the city. In 1902, the confectionery business was started by a Baghdadi Jew, Nahoum Israel Mordecai. What started as door-to-door sales of cheese and baked goods eventually found a permanent address in shop number F-20, New Market, in 1916.

The rich fruit cake, in particular, remains synonymous with Kolkata's Christmas celebrations. Legends surrounding the bakery say that when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, had visited the city, he had tasted the cake and declared it "the best fruit cake" he had ever tasted.

A slice of that rich cake is reminiscent of venerable Calcutta, an older, more 'cosmopolitan' city where Baghdadi Jews, Armenians and Anglo-Indians lived happily.

Owners have branded it as a people's bakery — Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Iranian, Jewish, Chinese — it doesn't matter. The thing with this city is that people here have always been very enterprising about food and so they have always wanted to try new things. The bakery has never had an existential crisis as the population of Kolkata has increased and changed character. So has Nahoum's to the new milieu.

Jewish merchants trained Muslim chefs in the dietary laws of Jews till the 'khansamas' became authorities on making Martabak Pilau or Hamin, vegetables and meat cooked together over a slow fire.

Until the mid-20th century, the city was home to a small Jewish population of around 4,000 at the time. Nahoum's, the city's last surviving Jewish bakery, remains a vestige of that dwindling heritage.

Many would wonder why is it so odd when a Jewish bakery sells Christmas cakes. Christians accept Jesus as a messiah and personal saviour while Jesus is not part of Jewish theology. Amongst Jews, Jesus is not considered a divine being. Therefore, all holidays that have a connection to the life of Jesus are not part of Jewish life and/or practice, including Christmas, Easter or Advent.

However, for Kolkata's oldest Jewish bakery, Christmas is not a religious festival but a celebration of its people, irrespective of religion, caste, ethnicity or class.

Flurys, the Swiss patisserie around since 1927, is of course iconic. So, what is it about Calcutta Christmas cakes? "I think it's special because it's steeped in nostalgia and some spurious colonial link," says Bachi Karkaria who wrote Flurys Of Calcutta: The Cake That Walked.

Her book is laden with cake stories, like the one made for a Nawab of Lucknow which was so big that when it was carefully driven out of the factory, wrapped in protective layers, onlookers thought a body was being removed.

Karkaria's book just doesn't talk about Flurys; it gives an insight into the socio-economic conditions that Park Street has experienced over the years and how it has changed Flurys. It narrates stories about the master cake makers over the years, how the art was transferred by the senior confectioners to the junior ones through years of trial and error that no Cordon Bleu degree will be able to match; how the waiters threw in a couple of extra pastries every time you bought a dozen. It also talks about how actor-producer-director Raj Kapoor ordered patties on a trip to Kolkata and then didn't eat the whole day so that he could wolf them down.

Be it a soft, viscid story of the first rumball on a rare treat, a lush Silvana cake or the rich fruit cakes for Christmas, all added up to important childhood events, loaded with memories.

Vikas Kumar, Executive Chef, Flurys, says: "Christmas is celebrated very well in Kolkata. I have been very fortunate to be a part of the Christmas celebrations in many foreign countries but the enthusiasm you find here is exceptional. I think, it has transgressed the border of religion long time back and people across cultures and of varied communities come and celebrate. It is really heartwarming and this is something we should all look forward to. I have had friends coming over and mentioning that despite the huge crowd, there are no instances of eve-teasing or pick-pocketing. This is very unusual. The lights, the decoration, the buzz all contribute to a happy mood. Hundreds of non-Christians visit Flurys during this time of the year to buy the traditional cakes and there's a little stampede-like situation."

Another city landmark — Saldanha bakery — located on Nawab Abdur Rahman Street, a short walk from Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, witnesses a queue of customers spilling over into the street during Christmas week.

It had a solid following amongst the city's Goan and Christian communities. Those communities have, however, dwindled but not Saldanha's business.

"Footfall during the Christmas week has been phenomenal but exact figures are difficult to provide. We moved out to the open space and have been literally on our feet to ensure that none of the clients went back disappointed," says Debra Alexander, the proprietor.

She is part of the three generations of the Saldanha family — Mona Saldanha, Debra Alexander, and Alisha Alexander. Debra is Mona's daughter, and Alisha, Debra's. Between them, they represent the three ages of pastry in the City of Joy.

Archbishop Thomas D'Souza, head of Roman Catholics in the archdiocese of Kolkata, says people from all faith and religion celebrate Christmas here and this is the beauty of this city. "The way the festival was inaugurated at Allen Park, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, along with several other ministers and other dignitaries, shows that it's celebration time for all and not just Christians. People participate in huge numbers in the Christmas celebrations all across the city."

Iftekhar Ahsan, the founder of Calcutta Walks, says: "Just next to Bow Barracks is Ajmeri Bakery, which is quite popular and is run by a Muslim family, who make and deliver Christmas cakes. This festival involves a lot of non-Christians and people from all communities participate in huge numbers in the revelry."

St James' Church or Jora Girja has been placing its orders for Christmas cakes from a small bakery in Park Circus for over a decade. Interestingly, neither the bakers nor the Church authorities get into discussions over faith when it comes to placing orders.

Sheikh Aman Rahman, the fifth-generation proprietor of Imperial Bakers and Confectioners as well as Rahman Bakers and Confectioners, says they have been operating for the past 147 years and people from all across Bengal visit New Market to buy traditional Christmas cakes. "While upcoming ventures focus on machine-made products, we still make our heritage cakes in the traditional, age-old manner and bake them in ovens. We supply cakes all across Bengal, be it Bali, Howrah, Chinsurah or Bandel. We also supply cakes to Assembly of God Church and Bandel Church. Christmas is no longer just a Christian festival."

Two shops away sits his uncle Sheikh Jahangir Rahman of Bharat Confectioners who says: "My ancestors were hawkers here. We began selling cakes from a 5-feet counter. We make cakes for everybody, starting from Rs 60." His younger brother has studied hotel management and specialises in confectionery.

In many other parts of the world, the fruitcake is the joke gift — the one that's usually re-gifted because no one actually wants to eat it. In Kolkata, this very fruitcake has acquired a sort of an exalted status as the food of 'sahibs'. People rent out ovens in bakeries by the hour in neighbourhoods like Taltala where bakers, mostly Muslim, shove enormous batches of cake, doused in rum and studded with raisins and candied peel, into coal and wood-fired ovens.

Christmas in Kolkata straddles the history of varied peoples — from Syrian traders and Dutch merchants, the Jews, the Anglo-Indians to the retinue of a Nawab from Awadh.

They have all nourished a cultural reform among other things, making this place a confluence of aesthetics. December 25 has become the epitome of a secular holiday in Kolkata, celebrated not out of any religious compulsion but just for fun and enjoyment. In its own ways, Christmas in Kolkata is just as shining a representation of the city's fabled hospitable spirit.