Our Christmas antiphony

It was exactly Dec 25, 2003. Being a ‘Christian’, it was my turn to treat classmates on the day… and hey U know.. when we said treat, we meant liquor.

Only nana (it’s how we call my granny) and Uncle George were home. After we celebrated the festival in a small way, Uncle said he had to meet somebody with a professional reason. Sometimes I go edgy over he being too-too workaholic and working even on such holy days... but then that day I din't mind.. Lauding his commitment to work, I dialed my friends, “Guys, let’s have it at home, drop in soon.”
A pucca plan was drawn: After uncle left at 10 in the morning, one by one, they started to breeze in. All six were home in minutes.

They wished me and nana Merry Christmas… and I knew what would follow… they would put forth their wish list…and yeah one asked for home-made wine, another wanted beer, another rum… and everything of that was made available soon. Everybody was pleased. We occupied one corner of our open terrace and modeled a mini cocktail lounge out there.

Christmas cake was brought, along with some sweetmeat and snacks. And yeah cigarettes. We then blissfully sat down to celebrate….

A field day, each of us were joking and poking fun at each other… and it took three hours for us to suck the bottles dry. We were all giggling when a strange sound interrupted. Burp… We turned to the other corner of the terrace; Mr K was talking to his shoes. He was puking and thunder-chunder rainbow parfait was gushing from his mouth.

It was the stomach overflow error. He was corpulent and emptied half of his stomach, and the amount of the technicolour mix that came out was enough to fill a small bucket. All of it flowed into the next compound, so we couldn’t do anything much but pray it dried soon in the winter sun before the scent caught the nose of those neighbours. Huh, it was winter.

Yep, it was then time to clear the place. We had large polythene bags kept ready to pack and throw the bottles and stuff away.

As there was too much of stuff strewn around I sought the help of my friends to clear the place. Don’t leave anything behind, I said and each of them responded positively. All of us were too busy to notice what the guy who picked up the liquor tumblers was doing.

Soon the place was clear and we had food and started out to meet other friends.

We had so much of fun there that we never bothered about the clock. It was hours past sunset and dark. Oh yeah, it was time to call it a day. After all started to their respective homes, I headed toward mine.

Door was not latched and opened for a nudge. Lights were dim and the house was quiet. I assumed that all would have just gone to bed after supper. To announce my arrival and to avoid any suspicion, I went in humming a song. Suddenly the lights flashed and I could see a small crowd gathering around me. Puzzled I stood. Uncle came to me calmly and guided me to the back door. He opened it and pointed out to something white and asked me “what is this?” I just took it in my hand and honestly said “plastic tumblers, and they smell liquor,” with an innocent look centered on my face.

What had happened, which I came to know later, was when I said to clear the place, one good friend of mine who was slaphappy with alcohol picked up the glasses in which we had those cocktails. The guy should have obviously dropped them into one of those plastic bags. But he asked me where to throw them, and I was too busy to answer, clearing things. Confused, he then took them downstairs. Must be he thought of dumping them in the dustbin that was on his right... but seeing double... he took the wrong turn and reached the rear part of the house.

Finding the dustbin missing there, he kept the tumblers on the roof of the kennel so that if someone opens the back door the tumblers would strike his/her eyes.

And in between in the evening, there was a hell of a fight between two houses over some stinking puke matter. Our house and the neighbours in whose house Mr K puked.

It was real Christmas for me that night.

Somehow, next morning, I managed to take the edge off my parents saying that “As you all know, I am a good boy. Actually I wanted to celebrate Christmas only with cakes. But that Mr K forced us to have wine… and we gave in.” Sorry man, when we get caught at home for some mischief, the first gateway to escape would be shifting the blame on a close friend. I did just that.

OK, uncle said, don’t ever mingle with people like Mr K.

And it was the first time I got caught at home after boozing.

So now when I am leaving home on a Christmas day, my uncle will start up his carol: “Francis, celebrate only with cakes… and don’t join that Mr K, Mr J, Mr S….. (the list of names has swelled since 2003). And I will have to give out that responsive singing “Will I join them? After all am a good boy.”